Yahoo shows off new search functions

Yahoo is hoping to make its search engine smarter

Yahoo has added new features to its search services, and will place the new components inside the news and sports search sections of its site.

The features include new filters and suggested search topics designed to help users better target searches using specific vertical search techniques.

Users of the special sports search service will be able to refine search terms to look only for image files or video clips. Additionally, the sports search will automatically suggest related searches, such as specific players or news about rival clubs.

For the news search, users will be able to target searches by specifying certain news sources as well as limiting results to a specific time period.

Yahoo said that the new tools will be released in a limited international rollout. Among the 12 countries participating will be the US, UK, India, Australia, Korea and Hong Kong.

The new features come as Yahoo is working to fend off the growing threat of Microsoft's Bing search engine which has been steadily gaining market share from Yahoo since its release last summer.