Yahoo! revamps search page design

Yahoo! unveiled a new search page design Wednesday as part of the struggling Internet pioneer's effort to ramp up competition with Google.

'Whether you're searching for that perfect summer vacation spot or a nearby Ethiopian restaurant, finding what you're looking for should be fast and easy,' Yahoo! Search vice president Laurie Mann said in a blog post.

'And, we think that it can also be beautiful. Today we're excited to introduce a new, modern design for Web search in the US that puts your results front and center.'

Mann said the new design places search results higher on the page and includes 'some under-the-hood performance improvements,' which will mean faster page loads.

'We're also introducing a new navigation bar at the top of the page so you can easily browse other Yahoo! sites. Over time, we'll be rolling out the navigation bar across more Yahoo! properties.'

A survey by comScore found Google held a 66.5 percent market share, followed by Microsoft with 17.3 percent and Yahoo! with 12.0 percent in April.

Yahoo! inked a 10-year alliance with Microsoft in 2009 to have Bing handle the heavy lifting of mining and indexing the vast array of online data, leaving the California-based firm to customize results for users.

Yahoo!, which is struggling to reinvent itself after being eclipsed as the ruling Internet search platform, named former Google executive Marissa Mayer as its chief executive last July.

Mayer managed some of Google's most successful innovations and influenced an array of the company's most recognized features, such as its globally popular search engine and uncluttered home page.