In an attempt to redefine Internet search as well as point towards a much-enhanced Web browser, the struggling Internet company Yahoo is coming up with a new tool – dubbed ‘Axis’ – which displays search results in a more expedient and persuasive layout, by altering the browsers made by other companies.

With Yahoo clearly looking to shake up search and Web browsing with the help of ‘Axis’, Ethan Batraski – Yahoo’s head of product for the Search Innovation Group - said that the new tool had been designed with the objective of eliminating the middle step of the standard three-step Web search process which involves: Entering a query; viewing the search results; and going top a particular page.

In other words, Axis allows Web users to go straight from query to page, skipping the middle step of surfing a horde of links. Even though Axis does not totally sidestep the requirement of picking from search results, it surely has a much better way of getting the users from searching to visiting a Web page.

In fact, rather than presenting the regular list of Web links related to a search query, browsers which run Axis will be able to display search results in a panorama of visual thumbnails which the users can scroll through above a Web page.

Yahoo’s new Axis tool was released in the Apple app store late Wednesday. Though the current version is capable of working only on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, apps for other mobile devices are also being developed by Yahoo.