Yahoo searches for ways to stay ahead of rivals

SUNNYVALE, California: Yahoo will keep innovating its search engine and try to outsmart both Microsoft and Google, even as the slumping Internet company prepares to lean on rival Microsoft's search technology.

That message emerged as Yahoo previewed a series of search engine upgrades that it plans to introduce before the end of the year, just a few months before Microsoft is supposed to take over responsibility for powering most of Yahoo's search results.

With Microsoft handling the heavy lifting, Yahoo will focus more on designing special touches aimed at making its search results more useful than its rivals, said Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo's senior vice-president of labs and search strategy.