SAN JOSE, CA -- Yahoo announced today a new product to help Web users create specialized search engines. Yahoo! Search Builder allows users to select a set of trusted sites to search across, and then add the search engine to their sites.

As far as I know, Google doesn't offer a similar product, although they do have Google Personalized Search, which returns search terms based on your previous queries.

Yahoo's new product places the company squarely into competition with companies that provide specialized search products, such as  Rollyo and Eurekster.

"Containing search to a couple of selected sites has always been a piece of cake," said Eurekster CEO Steven Marder.  "What this really does is validate the market."

Eurekster, for its part, offers features that are not part of Yahoo's initial product launch, such as collaborative filtering of search results, tagging, and ad-revenue sharing with the publisher.

Loren over at Search Engine Journal says Yahoo's Tim Mayer announced the engine at the conference, but I was in the first session with Tim and I don't recall him announcing anything. Although honestly, it's hard to snore and listen well at the same time.