Yahoo Answers, one of the top Q&A search engines on the web, is getting a little more search friendly. The improvements to the site could help Yahoo win more loyalty from its users, which may make the new tools worth marketers’ attention.

The search experience will be improved with new features recently announced in the Yahoo Answers blog. The site now offers tools that let users sort answers by relevance and date. There are also dropdown features that allow users to specify the number of answers they’ll receive and to see results for “tied questions.”

Additionally, a new Advanced Search feature helps consumers better find answers based on keywords, categories and the status of the questions, including options to see results for open questions, questions in voting and resolved questions.

Users now have the option to save searches as well. Saved searches will be linked to Yahoo’s new Digest Email, which users can opt to receive. This tool sends daily messages to subscribers with the most updated answers to the top three questions from their saved searches.

These improvements to one of Yahoo’s popular sites may be a wise move to help the search engine build loyalties leading into its partnership with Bing. When the two portals are combined, Yahoo officials predict they will account for roughly 30 percent of online searches.

This is supported by the latest search engine rankings from comScore, which attribute a combined 31.6 percent of U.S. searches to the two sites. On the other hand, Hitwise data, which doesn’t consider contextual searches, suggests Yahoo and Microsoft together account for 24.22 percent of searches. Notably, both reports show that Google still dominates the search market.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.