Yahoo has launched a search tool that its claims will offer users a better way to search the internet on their iPhone or iPad or on a desktop browser.
Yahoo Axis displays search results without users having to leave their current web page, and provides a preview of the pages that results link to in an effort to overhaul the modern method of search.
Axis allows users to search from the browser’s address bar, opening up a box which displays results and preview pages as the user types.
Axis is currently available as an app for Apple’s iOS-powered smartphones and tablets or as an extension for browsers including Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox.
“By supercharging the browser with a visually rich search experience and seamlessly connecting that experience across all of your devices, we are delivering an experience that will change the game,” wrote Ethan Batraski, a director of product management at Yahoo.
Batraski said that changing user behaviour, such as the widespread adoption of mobile devices to browse the internet, meant the time had come to rethink what users needed from a search tool.
Yahoo clearly hopes that Axis will give it more clout in the search market. This is an aggressive product for the struggling Yahoo to launch out of its search group.
Yahoo still generates more than a billion dollars a year in revenue from its search division. It makes a lot of that money from that second step in the search process by running ads on search result pages.
Ads will get inserted into the list of search tiles eventually, assuming the product is a success with users.
Watch a video explaining how the tool works below:
