Yahoo announced the launch of their new and improved search format yesterday, you can read the official release here.   These changes were no doubt sparked by the recent partnership with MSN and Bing.

The previous changes introduced by Yahoo included a new Yahoo! homepage, improved Yahoo! Mail, high-quality video calling in Yahoo! Messenger, and a suite of new Yahoo! Mobile experiences.

Here are some key features of the new Yahoo Search page design:

• Feature-Rich Experience – This is meant for having a quick access to search features such as Search Scan/SafeSearch that help the users protect you from viruses, spyware and spam. Hence, it will be easier for people to the research documents that they have created during searching.

• Search Assist Expansion – This new design of the page will help the visitors use query assistance that is available directly below the search box. It has also been given on the left-hand column for quick access lower on the page, even when the Search Assist layer is hidden. For further assistance, Yahoo has added Search Assist to the search box on every Yahoo! page in the U.S. with the launch of a new universal header.

• Intelligent Search Results – This feature allows the users to explore results from sites and narrow results using different types of SearchMonkey structured data. In the past few months, it has been seen that some more enhanced results for product, local, entertainment, reference, social, and tech sites have been displayed automatically. With this new search page design, Yahoo claims that they have made it easier for the users to experience rich results from an increasing number of sites.

The new Yahoo Search page design not only makes search easier but also has an improved Page load and Perceived load times with a better inline data URI Images.

See the video below for in-depth info on the features.

Courtesy Yahoo Search Blog

Search Engine Strategies San Jose just wrapped up last week, and the SES Conference Channel on You Tube has over 20 videos posted from the event.  Great stuff for all marketers.  One segment I really enjoyed was Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy One, discussion with John Mulligan of SEO-PR how external marketing agencies and in-house marketers have to be their own advocates to sell a search marketing strategy.  Those of us in the interactive agency world know all about the challenges that Brian mentions in hte interview.  Check it out:

Back in 2007, Yahoo’s MyYahoo startpage was the first to let its users check their email accounts, including GMail, via Yahoo Mail.  This was a smart move on their part because at the time it helped curb user attrition to Google via GMail dependence.  Google then followed suit last year and allowed Gmail users the chance to not only check other email accounts, but even send email through their Gmail interface as long as the other email account did not require SMTP authentication.

Google is using similar aggregation tactics, with its video search for example; it’s more efficient to search for You Tube or Meta Cafe videos on Google than on the sites themselves.  And with the new Google Wave project (beta), Google looks to be the central place to communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Their is no comparison with Yahoo for Google’s tools and application efforts, like Wave.  Google continues to  make their API code open source as a way to encourage the developer community to build more unique tools.  One recent example is Tweety,  which signs into your Twitter account and lets you fetch your Twitter timeline and post tweets from Google Wave.

If that wasn’t enough, Google Sites accounted for nearly 90 percent of the 21 percent growth in search query volume from the previous year on the five core search engines.  This accounts for much of  AdWords dominance in Paid Search.

So, what does Yahoo still do better than Google?  Here’s a roundup:

1. Yahoo Finance
2. Yahoo Answers : Q&A
3. Backlink Reporting via Yahoo Site Explorer: Even with the improvements in Google Webmaster Tools
4. Flickr : Photo Uploading & Sharing
5. Local Search : Still too tough to update Google Local Business Center listings
6. Entertainment
7. Privacy

Can you think of anything else Yahoo does better than Google?

PS:  As of 12 noon today, Yahoo Finance showed Google stock trading at $469.05.  A 51% increase YTD.  Yahoo is at $15.02, which is just a 20% increase YTD.