Internet portal Yahoo is partnering with consumer reviews website Yelp to beef up local results in its search engine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer unveiled the news at an employee meeting on Friday, the newspaper said, citing a person present at the meeting.
Yahoo's search engine will incorporate Yelp's listings and reviews and the feature will be launched in the coming weeks, the newspaper said.
The terms of the deal, which could help Yahoo compete with market leader Google , were not revealed.
Yahoo and
Yelp could not be immediately reached for comment.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently revealed a trend for the company which saw a dramatic increase in mobile users. At the Davos World Economic Forum in late-January,
Mayer said Yahoo will see more users accessing its services by mobile in 2014 than classic desktops.
"2014 will be the year of the crossover," Mayer said while sitting on a panel regarding the world digital context. "By the end of this year we will have more mobile users than we have PC traffic. You have to be prepared for that," she said.
In December, Yahoo was the
most popular online venue visited from US desktop computers and the firm has been under pressure to switch its core of the business to the increasingly crucial world of smartphones.
Mayer has made improving Yahoo's popularity on smartphones and tablets a priority as the faded Internet search pioneer is re-invented. Mayer, who was poached from Internet rival Google in 2012, has run into road bumps in recent weeks with the surprise exit of two top executives including her second-in-command.
Chief operating officer
Henrique de Castro walked away with a $20 million dollar (14.7-billion-euro) stock award and other compensation after just 15 months on the job. In Davos, Mayer said hiring was key to the next stage of the company's development.
"It is a matter of hiring the right people and making sure these people are really informed," she said. The departure of Castro amid continued poor ad revenue left analysts wondering whether Yahoo! will disappoint in a quarterly earnings report due on January 28.
Written with inputs from Reuters