Yahoo announced on Thursday a new addition to its search services, which will now include the ability to search nearly 50 million audio files using Yahoo’s database.

Yahoo said the testing for its audio search has begun and the feature will include songs from music stores such as iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster.

The 50 million audio files will include newscasts, speeches, interviews and podcasts. According to Yahoo, the engine identifies data via metadata that is embedded in the file.

Although AOL already has an audio search feature in place, Yahoo said it’s feature is by far the most comprehensive, since it has permission from online music stores to crawl through their databases for audio files.

"It's really one-stop shopping for the music fan," said Bradley Horowitz, Director, Technology Development, Search and Marketplace Group, Yahoo.

Even though Yahoo already has its own music service that lets users download unlimited number of songs for a flat fee of $6.99 per month, Yahoo said it would not optimize the service to display its song listings first. Once a user searches for a particular song, Yahoo will forward the user to one of the online music stores for paid download. In return, Yahoo will get a small commission for the generated sale.

Yahoo said it does not have plans to insert advertisements in the audio search engine, but that could change in the future.

Google said its not interested in the music area currently.