What does rel="search" do? [duplicate]

Question

In the head of Stack Overflow there is this tag:

 <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="Stack Overflow" href="/opensearch.xml">

I'm wondering what it does and if it's related to SEO?

I could find this quote:

Provides a link to a resource that can be used to search through the current document and its related pages.

This is a bit cryptic. Who is searching? Blind people? Google Bots?

Here is the content of the file:

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Stack Overflow</ShortName>
<Description>
Search Stack Overflow: Q&A for professional and enthusiast programmers
</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image width="16" height="16" type="image/x-icon">
https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/img/favicon.ico?v=4f32ecc8f43d
</Image>
<Url type="text/html" method="get" template="http://stackoverflow.com/search?q={searchTerms}"/>
</OpenSearchDescription>

And here is the wikipedia page on opensearch which states:

OpenSearch is a collection of technologies that allow publishing of search results in a format suitable for syndication and aggregation. It is a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format. OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com subsidiary A9 and the first version, OpenSearch 1.0, was unveiled by Jeff Bezos at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in March, 2005. Draft versions of OpenSearch 1.1 were released during September and December 2005. The OpenSearch specification is licensed by A9 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

This is still too cryptic for me.

Heredia

It is used to Add the autoDiscovery Link you can find more here :blog.unto.net/add-opensearch-to-your-site-in-five-minutes.html – Countermine

check this developer mozilla doc. developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch – Serosa

Answer 1

About the search Value The search value of the rel attribute gives a link to a resource that can be used to search through the current document and its related pages.

About the rel Attribute The rel attribute specifies the relationship between the current document and the linked document. Only used if the href attribute is present.

This link says it all. http://www.stateofdigital.com/good-rel-attributes-beginners-guide/

Etka

The link you provided does not function (anymore); additionally, I didn't find this explanation too helpful, which is not good, especially in addition to the inability to access the content you linked. – Meaghanmeagher