Yahoo Sharpens Search Term Precision

The latest version of Yahoo Inc.'s search engine senses when people are trying to find the right keywords and offers suggestions, an improvement the company says reduces "search fatigue."

Yahoo rolled out the "Search Assist" feature on Tuesday along with another upgrade that shows photos, videos, music clips, other content and standard Web links as part of search results.

The features bring Yahoo's search engine up to speed with recent similar improvements from competitors Google Inc., Ask.com and Microsoft Corp.

Search Assist appears as a drop down menu and offers variable wording for a person's searches. It also can be shut off. Yahoo says the feature saves people from repeated searches, as people often must reformulate their initial queries.

Yahoo said it has also added more entries for its Search Shortcuts, which are searches based on categories such as weather, images, news or songs, among others.