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Yahoo Search Assist works by suggesting related concepts to instantly refine a search, so that a user seeking information on Gordon Brown will see suggestions about Gordon Brown and Scotland, Gordon Brown and budget or Gordon Brown and Iraq in a drop down box beneath the search bar.

In addition to the new Search Assist feature, Yahoo has followed Google, Ask

Yahoo also claims to have enhanced the relevance of its general search service by adding tags from the sites it has acquired in recent years, including Flickr, Del.icio.us and the internally-created Yahoo Answers.

A third feature Yahoo is introducing is Search Shortcuts which it says are designed to help consumers save time when searching for popular categories such as events, music and movies.

Search Shortcuts weave in ratings and reviews, photos, official websites and other potentially useful information to augment a consumer's search on these topics.

Yahoo is seeking to stem the steady gains made by Google in the past two years. Market research firm ComScore reports that Google's share grew to 56.5% of the US search market in August, up 1.3% from July.