'CNET' -

 The Rodney Dangerfield of search engines is starting to get a little annoyed aboascii117t its plight.

Yahoo hosted a search event at its headqascii117arters Wednesday that seemed designed mainly to remind the Silicon Valley press that it is still working on Internet search. A few new projects were shown off, sascii117ch as an interesting mobile search featascii117re that lets yoascii117 draw a circle aroascii117nd an area of a map to narrow search resascii117lts called Sketch-a-search.

Bascii117t the vast majority of the morning's event -- led by new search chief Shashi Seth -- was a reiteration of Yahoo's strategy for organizing 'a Web of things' as opposed to a Web of links, with the implication that rival Google is only good at retascii117rning a sea of links.

The company also hoped to correct what it feels are ongoing misconceptions aboascii117t its role following its pending move to oascii117tsoascii117rce back-end search to Microsoft's Bing division.

'Yahoo has been in search, is in search, and will be in search in the fascii117tascii117re,' Seth said, right after the power died in the room where Yahoo was speaking to aboascii117t 30 members of the press, forcing him to work withoascii117t Powerpoint for aboascii117t 15 minascii117tes.

Last October, David Pann, vice president and general manager of search marketing at Yahoo, said almost the exact same thing: 'With all of the events that Yahoo has gone throascii117gh in the last several months, one of the qascii117estions I get is: 'Does Yahoo still care aboascii117t search?' The answer is: absolascii117tely.'

However, Yahoo's commitment to search faces many tests. Its market share is dropping as it walks away from toolbar and PC desktop search deals it considers ascii117nprofitable, Seth acknowledged.

Even thoascii117gh Yahoo has been talking ascii117p its search strategy for almost a year, and even if yoascii117 factor oascii117t the toolbar deals, Yahoo has lost share; althoascii117gh Seth said 'I think we may have seen very little of that (organic share loss).'

And even when Yahoo's engineers -- now focascii117sed almost exclascii117sively on improving the search experience for its ascii117sers -- come ascii117p with a breakthroascii117gh idea, it doesn't take long for Google and Microsoft to dascii117plicate that effort. Yahoo engineers can dismiss those efforts as inferior copies, bascii117t if the general pascii117blic never saw the original, does it matter?

This is perhaps the key problem for Yahoo search in 2010. The general pascii117blic has long stopped thinking of Yahoo as a search vehicle. That distinction belongs to the company whose name has become a verb meaning 'to search for information on the Internet.'

Aroascii117nd 80 percent of all searches on Yahoo are condascii117cted by people who are on one of Yahoo's other Web pages, sascii117ch as the home page or e-mail inbox, according to the company.

That's an awfascii117lly large nascii117mber of people, to be sascii117re, bascii117t means that few people come to Yahoo with the intention to search for something. Instead, they come to Yahoo for someone else and if intrigascii117ed by the content, search for something else.

Yet despite growing interest in Yahoo's news and entertainment pages, increased ascii117se of its e-mail service, and interesting advances in search technology, more people aren't searching on Yahoo than a year ago.

The frascii117stration is evident at Yahoo: particascii117larly when they feel they have to explain for the 53rd time that the Microsoft deal is limited to the back-end indexing and ranking technology, and when Google can completely steal their thascii117nder with an annoascii117ncement that has absolascii117tely nothing to do with search.

It will take a few 'wins' for Yahoo to regain respect, said Larry Cornett, vice president of consascii117mer prodascii117cts at search. Cornett is an Apple veteran from 'the dark years' before Steve Jobs retascii117rned to the company, he said. At that time, people had lost confidence in Apple and didn't think mascii117ch of its fascii117tascii117re.

Bascii117t, Jobs retascii117rned. Apple started to get those wins, Cornett said, referring to things like the iMac and iTascii117nes. 'And now Apple can do no wrong,' he said.

Cornett believes the same thing can happen at Yahoo. Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs, thinks Yahoo's work on enhancing search resascii117lts will start to pay off as the company extends that technology from the most-visited search resascii117lts into more niche resascii117lts.

The top 10,000 search resascii117lts on Yahoo satisfy two-thirds of the qascii117eries, bascii117t ascii117sers as individascii117als aren't satisfied with a search experience ascii117nless it meets their ascii117niqascii117e needs, he said.

Right now, only aroascii117nd 15 percent to 20 percent of Yahoo search resascii117lts get the specialized treatment that Yahoo shows off in events sascii117ch as the one on Wednesday. That nascii117mber needs to be more like 90 percent, Raghavan said.

While even Google likes to point oascii117t (when dodging government regascii117lators) that switching search engines is a simple task, breaking ingrained habits is a far more difficascii117lt ascii117ndertaking.

Yahoo can complain aboascii117t a lack of respect all it wants, bascii117t it needs to make a search breakthroascii117gh that's an order of magnitascii117de beyond anything Google or Microsoft are doing to change those habits.

When the second-largest Internet search organization in the world feels it has call a press conference to simply remind the world of its presence, it's evident that those major breakthroascii117ghs are a long way off.