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Investor enthusiasm for Yahoo is growing.

Since Yahoo hired CEO Marissa Mayer away from Google in mid-July, the Internet company's stock price has climbed by more than 20 percent. When the stock traded at $19.16 Tuesday, it was the highest the shares have been in more than two and half years.

Yahoo had gone through four CEOs, including interim leaders, in less than a year before persuading Mayer to take a shot at refurbishing what remains one of the world's best-known brands.

She already has improved employee morale and raised investor hopes, too, by promising to focus on Yahoo's strengths in news, sports, finance and entertainment. She also aims to develop more products to meet the growing demand for content on smartphones and tablet computers.

Yahoo also has been bolstering its stock by buying back its own shares. The company is using most of a windfall delivered in September when it sold half its stake in China's Alibaba Group for $7.6 billion.

Despite Yahoo's recent progress, most financial analysts still believe the company's revenue growth will lag far behind the rate at Google and Facebook. That means it could still be a few more years before Yahoo returns to its past heights.