Yahoo seeks advice from users for their new look

Those picked will give feedback to Yahoo about the different ways that information and applications can be presented to regular users. Opinions about how to change the homepage will be sought from randomly chosen users from the UK, France, India and the US. Once the testing is complete over the next few months all regular Yahoo users will be able to opt in to the new look.

The company hopes the revamp will boost the number of people that visit the page and improve advertising revenues. 

The last big overhaul of the Yahoo front page took place in May 2006 when it added elements to the page that let people choose what they saw when they visited.

But, said Tapan Bhat, Yahoo's senior vice president who oversees its front door, the 2008 revamp will go further. It aims to build on the personalisation tools that let users of its My Yahoo service put together their own start page.

"A lot of people like My Yahoo but they do not want to do the work," Mr Bhat told BBC News.

The re-design will see clutter on the front page reduced in favour of a mix of static and customisable content.