Competition between Internet search engines continues to heat up: last week Microsoft rolled out a revamped version of Windows Live Search, and now Yahoo has taken the wraps of Search Assist, new technology which is supposed to better understand what users are looking for on the Internet, and which will integrate rich media (like video, audio, and images) directly into users’ search results.
“The new Yahoo Search is focused on getting consumers the most relevant information as well as providing the best user experience. We know that consumers want a complete answer, not a bunch of links, and the changes we’ve made are focused on getting people to the best answer—whether it be a Web link, photo, video or music clip—in one search,” said Vish Makhijani, Yahoo Search’s general manager and senior VP, in a statement.
Part of Yahoo Search Assist is implemented as an AJAX-based drop-down pane which can appear beneath Yahoo Search’s main query window. Search Assist is designed to “sense” when a user needs help with their search, and will automatically offer links to suggested related searches and concepts. Search Assist will also integrate video, audio, and images directly into search results when relevant, in efforts to get users their answers right away without having to leave the search page.
The revamped Search feature also offers Yahoo Search Shortcuts, which point to other useful Web information contributed by other online users. The links are intended to help users save time when searching for information in popular categories, like movies, current events, music, health, shopping, and restaurants. Yahoo Search Shortcuts integrate items like reviews, ratings, photos, and official Web sites.
Yahoo Search is available on Yahoo sites in the U.S. right now, with a rollout expected in the UK shortly.
Yahoo says some of the features in Search Assist are designed to battle “search fatigue,” whereby only about 15 percent of online adults (according to Harris Interactive) find what they want on their first search, whereas most need to try three or four searches before getting what they need.
Yahoo hopes the differentiation represented by Search Assist will help it attract and even grow it’s share of the search audience—something Microsoft is also hoping its revamp of Windows Live Search will do for its online search efforts. Both services are chasing Google, however, which dominated online search queries in August with a 53.6 percent share of all searches, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Yahoo garnered a 19.9 percent share in the same month. Both Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s shifts in search engine presentation bear some resemblance to changes which began to appear on Ask.com back in 2005, and which are currently the focus of a significant Ask.com advertising campaign.
