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Vertical Search vs. Big Search: Drawing Battle Lines
July 12, 2006
It's late; let's lay it on the table:
In the near future, who can offer the user more - the always-innovating "big" engines, or a slew of vertically focused niche engines?
- Slack Barshinger and SearchChannel say verticals[*] (PDF - registration req'd):
While Yahoo!, Google and the like will continue to dominate the scene and - in aggregate - comprise the bulk of the online consumer's share of mind and media consumption, a myriad of vertical search engines are emerging to address the particular informational and research needs of niche audiences and professions.
- Search Insider (Aaron Goldman @ Media Post) says the Big Engines:
Clearly, until search results can be better customized on the general engines, many searchers will prefer (and find value in) going to an engine or directory tailored specifically to their needs. But think about how far the Big 4 [**] have come in just the past couple years in terms of personalization and tools for refining search queries. The time is not long before the general engines will be able to deliver results as relevant as today’s vertical engines–if not more, when overlaid with past browsing behavior, social networking, tagging, etc.
- Alan Meckler, while not saddling up for this particular battle, has said enough in the past to make me think he'd pick the verticals.
- This is only a guess, but I think the big engines would say "the big engines."
Personally, I'll go with verticals. First, Internet history is littered with the pink slips of people who argued against Alan Meckler. Second, if they're in the game for the long term, people will find the vertical engines and stick with them. The GYM will always win in raw numbers of the great unwashed, but don't underestimate the drawing (read: earning) power of a tightly focused audience of enthusiasts and advertisers.
Goldman argues, rightly, that users will consider it a pain to hop from vertical engine to vertical engine to get into the specific data silo they're looking for. But user fickleness is a sword that cuts both ways. Is the user any more likely to delve into the "big" engine's personalization settings? Might that not entail getting (gasp) an account with the engine? Maybe we should ask the .5% of the internet population who knows what Froogle or Y!Q is, or maybe the 3% who know how to use any engine's advanced search features. Google can attribute much of its success to its visual simplicity and having avoided the temptation of cluttering up ("portalizing," if you will) its prime real estate. Requiring the user to dig past that to opt in and configure personalized searching would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
[*] I suppose you should keep in mind that SearchChannel is a developer of niche search engines, which might account for some of their exuberance. Still, the report is worth downloading, if for no other reason than the nice directory of vertical engines that makes up the back 60% of the report.
[**] In case you're curious, #4 in this instance is Ask.com.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at July 12, 2006 11:49 PM
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Tracked on November 9, 2007 07:11 AM
Comments
I dont think tailored made search would give any help to sarchers as irrelevant results still be there infact in more presntable format, Google, Yahoo first of all do something about Organic spam in its search results (SERPs).
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Organic Spam and Google
Posted by: Smith at July 17, 2006 02:47 AM