The Yahoo Search Blog is celebrating the 5th birthday of Yahoo’s search engine today.

It was February 18, 2004, when Yahoo stopped using Google search results and rolled out its own index and ranking of web pages. (It should be noted that Yahoo continued to use Google for image search results at first, even after launching its own web search engine.) Yahoo had purchased Inktomi about a year earlier, but rather than using that index, Yahoo built its own. At the time, Microsoft had yet to launch its search engine, and Ask Jeeves/Teoma was the only other top tier search engine available.

Layoffs and the on-again, off-again Microsoft deal have dominated the Yahoo news landscape in recent months, but in today’s blog post, Yahoo points out a few of its accomplishments — things like BOSS, SearchMonkey, Site Explorer, and others. Yahoo also talks a bit about the road ahead, which will include the continued opening of Yahoo’s search platform, adding more rich content to search results pages, and improving Yahoo’s advertising offerings.

Happy birthday, Yahoo Search!

Related Topics: Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Search

About The Author: Matt McGee is Search Engine Land's Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. See more articles by Matt McGee