Yahoo! Juices Its Search Engine

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Google: A Verb for a Reason

With Google's name so deeply entrenched in users' minds as a synonym for search, rivals may need to do more than provide better results to win converts. This isn't the first time the leading contenders have upgraded their search engines with new features. But despite their efforts, Google's market share has only increased. At last count, Google was fielding nearly 64% of search queries, according to measurement firm Hitwise. That's more than Yahoo (23%), Microsoft (8%), and Ask (3.5%) combined. Even Google's competitors admit it won't be easy to overcome the power of Google's brand. "It's no question that it is a big hurdle," says Yahoo's Makhijani.

Dominance of search brings tremendous financial rewards: Google is expected to take in roughly three-quarters of the more than $8 billion forecasted to be spent on search advertising this year, according to research firm eMarketer. Yahoo, by contrast, is expected to pull in just 16.3% of that market. In past years, much of that revenue disparity was driven by the reality that Google was simply better at placing relevant ads next to any given search, boosting the number of money-generating clicks. But with Yahoo's upgrade to a more robust search advertising platform named Panama earlier this year, more of that revenue gap is explained by the difference in total searches performed on the respective engines.

None of this is to suggest that Google isn't working hard to cement and boost its commanding market share. In May, Google debuted Universal Search, an upgrade to its core search engine that tries to go beyond the concept of providing short answers, such as a stock quote in response to a ticker symbol. In addition to providing the requisite Web links, Universal Search displays images, videos, news, and other information.

The Advantage of Content

Some of these enhancements have the added benefit of directing users to other Google-owned properties. A query for Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs, for example, returns videos from Google's YouTube that play from within the search page, as well as images and related news articles from Google's archive. (Unlike Yahoo's and Microsoft's new results, these extras often appear at the bottom of the search results page.) Before Universal Search, Google's search results would only provide Web links to such multimedia content, unless the query was made on Google's news, photo, or video search sites. "Sometimes those non-Web links are the best answer to your search query," says David Bailey, lead software engineer on Universal Search. "We've made some strides, but are working on many further improvements, as part of Google's commitment to remain the leader in providing a relevance-focused results page."

While its new search capabilities echo many of those introduced by rivals, Yahoo still has something that could give its new engine an edge: dozens of content sites focusing on everything from automobiles to weather. Owning those properties enables Yahoo to mine its data more thoroughly than an outside search engine can, says Makhijani. For example, because it has its own music service, Yahoo doesn't need to guess that an audio clip is from a certain artist singing a certain song when it highlights that clip in response to a search. "If we own it, and we can deliver additional value, then we will use it," says Makhijani.

Holahan is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York .