The Ups and Downs of Vertical Search

By Michael Finnegan

Account Executive

In an attempt to compete against major search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN, newer entrants on the scene have begun to take a different approach. Rather than trying to organise all of the world's information, these players focus on a specific topic or industry.

This might not sound like anything new – after all, the likes of job engines have been around for years. So, you might wonder why there has been so much hype surrounding vertical search recently. The answer is that internet users are demanding much more relevant search results and the new vertical engines need to seek out ways to compete.

The main search engines do offer some level of vertical search, for example Google Co-op where users can build and customise their own search engines. However, the level of human input in vertical engines is usually much higher and may prove to be a stumbling block for the main engines to implement given that they attempt to cover the whole spectrum of information online. This is where vertical search may be at an advantage.

Vertical search provides many opportunities for advertisers wanting to target consumers interested in a particular topic. If you need to reach people looking for property then advertising on a vertical search engine focussed on this topic, such as PropertyFinder.com, may provide a more focussed audience.

Advertising on a number of vertical search engines on a large scale may take a lot of work, particularly in terms of SEO when you consider that they won't all use the same algorithms to define rankings. However, the likelihood of better conversion rates may be worth the effort. Also, PPC advertising on these platforms should be much more targeted and should, in theory, provide a superior return on investment.

From a searchers point of view the main advantage of using a vertical search engine is that the context for their search query is already defined. As a result, searchers can narrow down their search much more easily and results are likely to be more relevant to the query. At the same time, topics such as jobs or health may be covered in much greater depth than on a general search engine. Most importantly, a quality vertical engine - for example, one focussing on property, will cover all areas of interest to anybody looking to buy, sell, rent or refurbish property and all in one convenient place. The question is can Google or Yahoo! compete with this and to what extent?