Yahoo does some spring cleaning, to shut down a number of services including Yahoo Stars India

It has been a while since Yahoo started shutting down/retiring some of its offerings, in a bid to focus on building new products. Last time around, the company had shut down Yahoo Deals, Yahoo SMS Alerts and Yahoo Kids, among others. And this time, 12 more products will come under the axe. Here is a quick look at them.

Yahoo Stars India: Offers latest coverage of celebrities, including celeb photos, audios and videos, as well as tweets by celebs and relevant links. The service will be shut down on July 25, within a year and a half of its launch (it is still in beta). Interested users can check out Yahoo India OMG!

Yahoo Axis: Enables users to view Yahoo search results from any page. If you have installed the browser plug-in, it will no longer work. If you have downloaded the app, it will continue to work, but won't be actively maintained. So it may be convenient to opt for the Yahoo search app for iOS and Android.

Yahoo Browser Plus: Allows developers to create web applications with desktop capabilities. One can view the company's current developer offerings here.

Citizen Sports: Offers a one-stop destination for sports news and more. However, one can get latest sports news on Yahoo Sports, play fantasy sports like Fantasy Football and stay up-to-date on the go with the new Yahoo Sports app for iOS and Android.

Yahoo! WebPlayer: Enables publishers to add relevant audios and videos to their sites and also play those without leaving the sites. The WebPlayer won't load going forward, but users can still play media files using native browser support.

FoxyTunes: A tool to control one's media player directly from Yahoo Messenger. To see the latest in the music world, you can visit Yahoo Music.

Yahoo RSS Alerts: You will continue to get the latest content by subscribing to keyword news alerts (at Yahoo Alerts) and receive those via e-mail.

Yahoo Neighbors Beta: A practical discussion board for a neighbourhood which covers loads of interesting topics – from neighbourhood safety to contractor recommendations. The service will be shut down from July 8. Users may now visit Yahoo Local Search to find out what's going on in their neighbourhoods.

AltaVista: The company will close down the search engine on July 8. But you can visit Yahoo Search for your searching needs.

Yahoo Downloads Beta: Yahoo Downloads will not support third-party downloads from July 31, but it will continue to facilitate downloads of Yahoo products like Yahoo Toolbar or Yahoo Messenger.

Yahoo Local API & Yahoo Term Extraction API: As part of this shutdown, all Yahoo Local API documentations will be removed from the Yahoo Developer Network portal by September 28. The company is also blocking direct access to the Yahoo Term Extraction API and it will require developers to go through Yahoo Query Language (YQL). Existing users can access the YQL forums for any query they may have about migrating to YQL.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)