Yahoo News Testing Related Search Results On News Stories

Yahoo has shared a sneak preview of a new content module that some users will see below individual stories on Yahoo News. The module shows related Yahoo content — news articles, photos, and videos — and also includes a handful of related search query links.

The module is currently only being shown to a “fraction” of Yahoo News users, but the company says it’s working well already:

In its first week, our internal data indicates that user engagement with this related search information in Yahoo! News is nearly twice the amount we see with similar features. We will be rolling this out to all users as soon as it is ready.

What’s potentially interesting here is whether the module will impact Yahoo’s search query share in any measurable way. Any clicks on the related links could presumably count as a Yahoo search – certainly the ones at the bottom under the “From the web” heading. Just a couple months ago, both Yahoo and the services that track search market share came under some fire because the way Yahoo structured its news slideshows was counting each new view as a search and inflating Yahoo’s numbers. Danny Sullivan wrote about that in his article, Time To End The Bull Search Engine Share Figures?.