Yahoo's on Google's trail

Yahoo's watching Google and Google's watching Yahoo. So expect any new feature from either search gaint to be matched in short order.

That's why it comes as no surprise that Yahoo unveiled new personalized search features Tuesday, following last week's buzz over Google's My Search History service. To be fair, Yahoo has been testing personalized search for months. But the company clearly was pressed to match a feature from Google for easily finding and using an archive of personalized Web pages from its main search page. And that's just what Yahoo did, while making other improvements.

One-upping Google, Yahoo updated its downloadable toolbar with embedded "My Web" features, as the service is called. Yahoo's My Web lets people save, anotate and share Web pages they've found while searching or surfing. And using Yahoo's new toolbar, people can click a button to add any Web page to their personal search archive.

In an overture to software developers, Yahoo has also opened up APIs (application programming interfaces) so that outside engineers can create new tools for My Web.

Now time for a Google volley.