In a presidential election year, with Barack and Hillary barraging each other with so-called “attack ads” and John McCain waiting in the wings to weigh in as well, Yahoo has jumped on the bandwagon to throw a punch at long time rival and larger opponent Google. Like a less influential candidate vying for votes, Yahoo has decided to go after the Google base of voters (searchers) by drawing contrast, as they say, between the two candidates.

In a radio advertisement that has just begun airing, the Yahoo voiceover says “…search engines like Google get you lost in all of the links, but not Yahoo.” There is also attention given to Yahoo’s dropdown search box and upcoming features for the world’s second most used search engine.

Yahoo (sometimes called the Avis of search) as the number two contender and subject of buyout and takeover talks recently needs to draw a distinction between its offerings and that of Google. Since people are creatures of habit, this will not be an easy task to draw searchers away from the Mountain View behemoth.

But, while Yahoo may be slapping Google with one hand, they are shaking hands with the other as both search companies and top social destination Myspace have teamed up to endorse the non-profit OpenSocial Foundation. The three are facing off with Facebook over the open source standard going forward for social networking sites.

So, like a candidate in a political debate who will sometimes face-off with the frontrunner and at other times join forces to gang up on another rival, Yahoo gives Google a slap then a tickle in the competitive world of search. But, unlike most political races, there is no election day as the quest for votes among the search engines is ongoing plus there is no end is sight for this debate.

Filed under: Yahoo