Yahoo revamp opens up search engine

Yahoo is revamping the way its search engine works by allowing the owners of websites themselves decide how their results will appear.

The "open search platform" will allow website owners to expand their search results beyond just a simple title, URL and summary to include links, photos and other data such as a phone number or street address.

Website owners will supply Yahoo with the information they want presented, which the company's Machine Learned Ranking system will add to search results.

A Yahoo executive on Tuesday said both website owners and users will benefit from the additional information displayed.

"Users benefit because their search results will have more useful information than they did before from websites they trust," wrote Vish Makhijani, senior vice-president and general manager of Yahoo Search, on the company's blog. 

"And websites benefit through increased and higher quality traffic from Yahoo Search."

New Digg-like news aggregate site also launched

The revamped search will be available soon, he said. Users will also be in full control of how their search results show up, so they will be able to stick with the traditional displays if they choose.

Yahoo also on Monday night launched its Buzz website, which is similar to the Digg site in that it summarizes news stories from various outlets and lets users vote on their importance and relevance.

Like Digg, stories that receive the most votes are listed at the top of the site. Buzz adds a twist in that it incorporates how many search queries there have been on the story's topic.

Yahoo is in the process of trying to fend off a $44.6-billion U.S. takeover bid from Microsoft Corp. Yahoo chief executive officer Jerry Yang earlier this month said it would be "business as usual" for the company despite the moves by Microsoft.