Yahoo! set to announce search engine changes

Yahoo! is set to announce an overhaul of its search engine as it attempts to catch market leader Google.

Reports suggest that the upgraded system will represent the most significant change to its search engine in nearly four years.

The new system will suggest ways to phrase searches as users type them and provide a list of related concepts.

It will also offer a list of related links to photos, videos and music on the main search result page.

Furthermore, search engine will now assimilate information from Yahoo!´s calendar service.

Vish Makhijani, the company´s senior vice president of search, told the Associated Press: "Our goal is to be best-of-breed in certain categories."

Recently, Microsoft also announced improvements to its own search engine as it looked to gain ground on Google and capture revenue from online advertisers.

The latest figures from comScore indicate that Yahoo! lost ground to Google in terms of search in August. The Sunnyvale-based company´s market share of the search market dropped by 0.2 per cent to 23.5 per cent.