Google will incorporate music into its search results in the United States from today.

In addition to their search results, users looking for artists, songs or albums by name will receive links to audio previews and options to purchase tracks or albums from Google's music search partners MySpace and Lala.

The new service is also designed to help users locate songs by lyrics, if they do not know the full titles.

Google said that the new service “helps artists, labels, songwriters and music publishers by driving traffic to licensed online music services, thus providing a source of revenue and introducing music seekers to a new generation of online music search and discovery services like Pandora, iMeem, and Rhapsody.”

The four major record labels - Warner Music, EMI, Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment and Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, have all licensed their catalogues for Google's initiative, as reported in The Times last week. Many independent labels also are expected to take part.

Tom Stocky, Director of Product Management at Google, said, "The best answer to a query is frequently not a web page but a map, a video, an image or some other kind of content. This launch makes search better by adding music to the list of things we can connect people to speedily, as well as providing a revenue source for artists, labels and others."

Google’s announcement will be seen as a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes, the download store that has become the world’s leading digital music retailer.

Although iTunes currently offers over 11 million songs, it requires the installation of free software and the opening of an account to function. If Google is successful in marrying its normal ease of search to music retailing, it could take a slice out of Apple’s business.

On the other hand, Google may be positioning itself more as a virtual A&R man, spreading news of new and unsigned acts by linking directly to their MySpace pages.

The Google announcement is the latest deal involving the music industry as it attempts to claw its way back from financial calamity by embracing, rather than demonising, online music. Other initiatives include the online streaming services we7 and Spotify.

Google's new music service will launch today in the United States at www.google.com.

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