• by Masha Geller , April 7, 2003

Google is the undisputed darling of online search, but its relationship with partner Yahoo is increasingly confusing. In December, Yahoo! bought Inktomi for $235 million, officially signaling to the world that it would develop and manage its own search technology. For many months now, Yahoo has been testing its search offerings, all the while maintaining a "flexible" relationship with Google, and today Yahoo! Search went live. Where that leaves Google is unclear.

Yahoo is touting a better search experience to users through "several new enhancements such as a cleaner, easier-to-use interface and faster ways to find relevant information." In other words, the search site features a stripped-down interface that strongly resembles the famous bare-bones Google front page, and company officials are focusing more on increasing revenue through relevancy and search results than banners and graphics.

According to Yahoo's announcement, the new offering includes an extended search box, a horizontal search tab menu to search the Web, Directory, News, Yellow Pages and Yahoo!'s new Image Search, and clearer demarcation of page sections.

The new offering also includes shortcuts to information so that searches for maps, yellow pages, weather, news and dictionary definitions return answers quicker than before. Users can search in over 30 different languages, choose the number of results displayed per page, open search results in a new window and more. In addition, users can now save their preferences through their Yahoo! ID to use Yahoo! Search the way they want from any computer.

What's more, Yahoo! Search includes a preview of a product search engine that allows users to compare products by price or merchant - much like Google's Froogle (rolled out in December).

Google still has more than 100,000 advertisers and is #1 on the Nielsen//NetRatings scale (Yahoo is #2), but what happens to these two in the future is anyone's guess.