Yahoo Offers Search Tied To Web-Page Content

Yahoo Inc. on Thursday released in beta a tool that can search for information related to content highlighted on a web page.

The concept behind Y!Q is to provide users with an easier way for getting more information on topics covered on a page.

For example, using the cursor to highlight the term "international climate change" would get you a list of results that are topped with the terms, "international climate," "global warming," and "irreversible." Un-checking any one of those terms would return another set of results that are narrower than the first. The idea is to eventually return the most useful results.

The Y!Q toolbar is available through a free download on the Yahoo site, and installs automatically on Internet Explorer. A plug-in is also available to add the tool to the open-source Firefox browser.

Y!Q is the latest of a string of search features and tools released over the last several months by Yahoo and rivals Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., as the three battle for attention in the hot Internet search market.

Microsoft launched its homegrown search engine on its MSN portal earlier this week, Yahoo has focused heavily on improving its local search features, and Google has been expanding its search capabilities to offline content, such as books and documents in libraries.

The online advertising market is growing rapidly, driven primarily by paid search over the last several years. According to market researcher JupiterResearch, advertisers are expected to spend $13.8 billion online in 2007, with paid search forecast to grow 30 percent compounded annually from now until then.