Yahoo has made changes in its local search engine, where Yahoo Shortcuts are displayed in search results.

Yahoo Shortcuts are special features designed to help users quickly find answers.  It provides vertical search content and deep links into sites with relevant content.  Basic info such as telephone numbers and business hours of operation are shown in the results.  At times, images, web reviews, and overviews are displayed.

It seems Yahoo and Microsoft are teaming up to move Google from the top spot.  Yahoo Search has taken the backseat for so long that most SEO experts and even advertisers have very little regard to its search results. Google has been taking the lead, and Yahoo seems to have been able to do very little about it for quite some time.

Changes such as this make Yahoo Search more appealing and the search competition more interesting. When we talk about web search, Google comes to mind right off the bat.  Google has become a household name over the years. It would be interesting to see Yahoo ramp up its drive to beat Google and giving business owners an alternative place for their search spend.