14 DAY TRIAL // Rounding up the set of updated products, Yahoo has just launched, perhaps surprisingly, an improved search experience with a bunch of new features and design tweaks to show that, not only Yahoo Search isn't dead, it's actually getting some serious development focus. Still, some of the changes were most likely already being worked on before the Bing deal, and others geared towards better integration with Bing in preparation for the upcoming merger.
“We know that search has been a hot topic over the past few weeks, so we wanted to share with you what the Yahoo! Search team has been focusing on lately. Today, we are announcing a new search page design that makes search more personally relevant and helps people explore the things that matter most to them. It exemplifies how Yahoo! is continuing to innovate in search technology and the user experience,” Larry Cornett, VP of consumer products at Yahoo Search, wrote.
One of the more noticeable changes is the new design, intended to complement the recent homepage redesign. But it's not just an aesthetic change, the fresh search results page now having three columns with a new search-specific column introduced on the left side. Depending on the type of search conducted, the column could feature quick links for the users to focus their searches to only specific sites like Wikipedia.
With the new left column comes a fresh focus on people search, with Yahoo claiming it will take away this type of search from Google. When searching for a person's name, the left column will show the results from several social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or other social sites like FriendFeed or Pandora.
The Search Pad has also been moved and integrated with the left column along with the SearchScan and Safe Search features. Search Assistance sees some small tweaks but functionality is mostly the same; however, if the Search Assistance layer is hidden, there is a new “Related Concepts” section, very similar to Bing's, in the left column.