Sports Calendar

The company has also upgraded its search technology and broadened its databases. The search rankings will include more video results. There will also be a new TV and events listings feature.

Ask makes its money by showing sponsored advertising links at the top of the page - provided by Google.

Yahoo!’s own search advertising partnership with Google, due to launch shortly, has been delayed for a month while regulators investigate monopoly concerns.

But both companies are confident that the deal, which allows Google to sell advertising for some of Yahoo!’s online advertising space, will go ahead.

While advertisers fear that the combined market share will lead to higher prices, Yahoo! is counting on the estimated $800 million annual revenue to give it some breathing space to develop further its search engine.

Yahoo! has rolled out two innovations this year based on open-source technology. SearchMonkey is a free-to-use developer tool designed to give website owners a chance to boost their presence on the results page to more than just a blue link.

Search Boss also gives third parties unprecedented access to Yahoo!’s search technology, including the ability to re-rank and control the presentation of search results.

Jeffrey Revoy, Yahoo! Europe’s vice-president of search and social media, told The Times that openness was key to providing better searches for users.

Yahoo! is also using semantic search technologies to arrive more quickly at what the user means when he enters the words into the search box.

In 2009 Yahoo! will be introducing related “concepts" alongside the usual search results which act as suggestions to help the user. For example a search for Colbie Caillat, the hugely popular American pop singer, will bring up the seemingly bizarre “concept" suggestion of Fleetwood Mac - Ken Caillat, Colbie’s father, produced the group in the 1970s.

Microsoft has not been standing still either. Last week it announced plans for a Search Technology Center in Europe to try and improve its penetration into the market.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, admitted that the company had been slow to grasp the potential of internet search.

“We probably missed the power of the advertising model, not so much the technology," he said.

He said Microsoft was now David to Google’s Goliath in search.

At the same time Microsoft is rolling out a new measure to attracts users to its LiveSearch engine. In what is essentially a loyalty rewards program, visitors who register can get “tickets” for using the engine which can be exchanged for music downloads or other goodies.

Recent research by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster found that 22 per cent of search engine customers (mostly Google users) do not know which engine they are using.

This gives companies like Microsoft and Ask a chance to lure searchers with a better experience and a brand name.

There is also a big appetite among advertisers and agencies for a bit of competition to Google. The launch of Cuil, a search engine start-up developed by a group of former Google executives, earlier this year set pulses racing among advertisers and in the internet community.

That launch flopped but the eager search for a “Google-killer” goes on.

Google's grip

In the UK, more than in most markets, Google has a vice-like grip on the paid-search sector.

According to comScore, in June Google sites had 75.3 per cent of all search queries, followed by eBay (5.5 per cent), Yahoo! sites (4.3 per cent) and Microsoft sites (3.4 per cent). Ask had 2.4 per cent, AOL including Bebo, had 2.3 per cent and Facebook 2.2 per cent.

According to comScore, in the US Google extended its lead in August with 63 per cent of total searches. Yahoo! had 19.6 per cent, Microsoft had 8.3 per cent, Ask had 4.8 per cent, and AOL had 4.3 per cent.

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