Yahoo Inc.'s (YHOO) board of directors is placing renewed emphasis on its search for a permanent CEO, even while shopping the company's core business to potential buyers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo's board was previously focused on raising interest among potential bidders for the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company after firing CEO Carol Bartz in early September, these people said. At the time, the company said it would undergo a 'strategic review' to determine its next steps and said it would also undertake a CEO search.

Yahoo's board and its financial advisors have since been contacted by various potential suitors, but the board felt it was important to seriously consider hiring a new leader to run the company in case no palatable buyout offer emerges, said the people familiar with the matter.

These people added that given the uncertaintysurrounding Yahoo's fate, the pool of potential candidates for CEO might not be large. Yahoo directors currently have no list of candidates for its top job, these people said.

Another factor in the decision to rev up the CEO search, one of these people said, is to prevent potential Yahoo buyers as well as China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. -- which has long wanted to buy back Yahoo's stake in Alibaba -- from having too much leverage over Yahoo during negotiations, one of these people said.

'As originally announced on September 9, both processes -- the search for a new CEO and the Board's comprehensive strategic review -- are under way,' a spokesman for Yahoo's board said in a statement. 'Both remain important priorities and the Board remains focused on its goal of returning the Company to a path of robust growth and returning value to shareholders,' he said.