Yahoo is launching an eight-week ad campaign to spread the message that Yahoo search is better — and safer — than Google and other rivals.

The ads promote the benefits of Yahoo SearchAssist, which auto-completes entered keywords, and SearchScan, which helps users avoid dangerous sites. And unlike Microsoft's quirky Gates/Seinfeld campaign, yanked pulled less than two weeks after it started, the message is clear: use Yahoo for better search.

And they make no secret who they're competing against. One radio ad called Google out by name: "We switched Melissa's Google page with Yahoo," a narrator chirps, claiming that "some search engines can lead you to dangerous links."

Another calls Google the place where people go to "get lost," urging them to try Yahoo Search:

The ads were kept "lighthearted and true to the Yahoo brand, but we didn't pull any punches," admits VP Marketing Raj Gossain on the Yahoo Search blog. Soho Square and sister agency OgilvyOne in San Francisco assisted with the creative.

Online ads will appear across Yahoo's content network and sites across ad networks like Federated Media and BlogHer. Yahoo also made site-specific buys on SFgate.com, NYTimes.com, TechCrunch, Weatherbug, Whitepages, and Zillow.

The Google-targeting ad blitz is admirably aggressive, but oddly-timed, given that Yahoo recently enlisted Google to sell sponsored search ads on its site. The companies are currently working hand in hand to promote the merits of their liaison to the Department of Justice.

Yahoo relied on outside search providers until 2003, when it launched its own search engine. Since then it has struggled to close the gap with Google, which ">commands 63% of the search market to Yahoo's 19.6%.

Globally, Yahoo captured just 231 million unique visitors in Aug. '08 (-3.4%) vs. Google's 636 million, a whopping increase of 31.7%.