Yahoo! Inc. is rolling out a souped-up search engine Monday in a bid to supplant its business partner, Google, as the most popular place to find things on the Internet.
With the revisions, Yahoo believes its search engine will provide more useful information than Google"s and be simpler to use. The rebuilt version will combine Google"s index with Yahoo"s customized services spanning sports, driving directions and weather reports.
Yahoo played a vital role in Google"s rise. After encouraging Google to create its search engine, Yahoo raised the startup"s profile nearly three years ago by licensing Google"s software to run the searches on its popular online portal. To lessen its dependence on Google, Yahoo last month bought search engine specialist Inktomi for $279.5 million. Yahoo plans to incorporate Inktomi"s tools in to its search engine by year"s end.
Google declined to comment on Yahoo"s new search engine.