Google would like nothing more than to see its pattern of search engine growth continue, and see its competitors Yahoo and Microsoft slide off the face of the search map.  To get there, though, it has to provide its users with the best experience possible.

Last night Google took an important step towards doing that goal by rolling out a new version of its search engine.  It's immediately noticeable that some of Google's traditional logo art has been updated to have a bit more 3D character and is a bit brighter.  And once you pull up search results you'll notice the page is far busier than the rather clean previous page.

Some will enjoy this new busier format – it packs more ads (in the right side bar) and a new left sidebar that includes quick access to different categories of content.  Some of the functionality on this bar is rather redundant with the top search bar (such as "Images"), but some, like the Time Line feature could actually prove handy.  Most of these features were tested by Google Labs over the last couple years.

Google has posted a video on the new search engine, which can be viewed here.

In the video, Google Project Manager Nundu Jakarim states, "At Google we know search must support the expanding needs of our users.  That's the reasoning behind our latest update to Google Search -- to make it easier to access powerful tools for smarter and faster searching."

Google's biggest competitor, Yahoo, now powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine, has been busy cooking up something new of its own -- an anti-Google ad campaign.  In a new commercial whose tagline is "Your favorite stuff all in one place. Make Yahoo your home page.", Yahoo shows a page that looks a lot like Google and comments, "When you look at this home page nothing looks back at you. You come to this place so you can leave."

Yahoo's ad says that, by contrast, it "doesn't hustle you out the door. It's a place that gets to know you, a place that finds things for you."

Jeff Goodby, the co-founder and co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) in San Francisco who put together the ad, states in The Wall Street Journal, "Yahoo's mission now is to convince consumers that Yahoo is the place where you go to navigate the entire Web."

Yahoo desperately hopes the ad will help reverse its market share free-fall.

The new ad can be viewed here.