Yahoo is testing a revamped version of its search results page, in a bid to prove its commitment to its search-engine business.
The company announced the move on Monday, along with various enhancements to its webmail and instant-messaging applications. The revamp follows July's Microsoft-Yahoo deal, which will see Yahoo use Microsoft's Bing search engine as the back-end for its results.
"To prove just how committed we are to continued innovation in your search experience, we're testing a new search results page that ups the ante on personal relevance," Yahoo applications chief Bryan Lamkin wrote in a blog post.
Those who are able to access the new search-results page — the page is currently being tested on a small subset of randomly selected users — will see a list of filters, such as Wikipedia and eHow, running down the left side of the page.
"We're providing new tools for refining results that let you explore related concepts, display only results from popular Yahoo and third-party sites, and narrow results by types of content like people, videos and discussion forums," Lamkin said.
Lamkin also said the company was "using advanced science" to detect a user's results preferences based on their search history. For example, a user searching for the term 'jaguar' will see results relating to the big cat if they had recently been searching for information on cats, and results relating to the car if they had recently been researching transportation.
Enhancements to Yahoo Mail include the ability to drag-and-drop photos into emails, and an increase in the maximum mail attachment size from 10MB to 25MB. The updated Yahoo Messenger application now supports multiple languages and high-quality video calling.
Talkback
I may in time switch over to this from google's search engine because it will be nice to actually have a search results returned without having to sift through the mass clutter of advertisements.