Vertical Search

What is Vertical Search????

By Don Clements, Ontario, Canada

May 20, 2006

Vertical search is something new on the street. It a search Engine aiming at people interested in a particular area (narrow specific topics) and enable marketers to target very focused audience. These new entrants have created vertical search engines unlike their cousins, Google and Yahoo, vertical search engines contains information in their indexes about a specific topic. Example, "Liqueur Desserts", or "Flying Fish" very narrow topics.

Advertizing on vertical search engine is about fishing where the fish are. You as a marketer need to go where the targeted group you are trying to reach is, "says Scott Virkler, (vise president of business development at GlobalSpec), which links buyers and sellers of electrical, mechanical and optical products and has been around since 1096.

Experts (Greg Sterling, an analyst with the Kelsey Group) agree that vertical search isn't a passing fancy, but rather a segment of the search market with a high potential for growth. The general web search market is pretty much locked up, so vertical search is where the opportunity to create something competitive is.

While they lack the brand name recognition of major sites and also don't have the portal-style ability to drive and retain traffic, search engines such as:

Encyclo-diction-almanac-apedia...(http://www.answers.com)

Jobs... (www.indeed.com)

Physician/dentist/lawyer/real estate agents...(www.dr-411.com)

The traveller...(www.sidestep.com)

are gaining traction with consumers.

Some analysts believe that highly specialized vertical search companies pose potential threat to the likes of Google and Yahoo, but there is still a range of predictions on exactly where the market is headed.

In March of this year, LookSmart launched a group of five vertical search tools and promised more, Yahoo unveiled the first of what is hinted would be a family of vertical engines and at least two new specialized sites went live. In April of this year, Yahoo launched, in beta form, (http://yahoo.travelsearchengine.com) an expanded version of its travel platform to enable travel planners to search for hotel rooms as well as airfares.

So why not Vertical Search Engines for narrow and very focus topics?