Finding Cheaper Pay Per Click Rates

Jupiter Research analyst, Sapna Satagopan, recently wrote a study where she finds that advertisers are focusing their spending on Google and yahoo and not expanding to other quality engines such as Business.com. By focusing on only the "Big Dogs", their cost per click price is higher than necessary.

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/emarketing/article.php/3605741

Going Vertical

iProspect's director of algorithmic search explains the when, why and how of using vertical search engines to better target audiences.
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9452.asp

Google Co-op

Google Co-op is a way for people to create specialized search engines by tapping into the main Google index or the option for searchers to pick preferred vertical search providers to show up in Google OneBox results.

http://google.com/coop

Yokel

Today, Yokel.com officially launched. Yokel.com is a local shopping search engine that helps consumers comparison shop by city or zip code.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060510/new006.html?.v=62

Gaming Vertical

Gazerk, a Ziff Davis Group vertical search engine for the video game market just launched.

The site will allow gamers to "slice" search results into editorial categories like news, reviews, previous, cheats and videos.

http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3605021

The Future of B2B Search

SearchChannel and Slack Barshinger released a white paper report titled "The Emerging Opportunity in Vertical Search".

"It is becoming increasingly apparent to both users and media companies that the general search engines do not always deliver relevant results for b-to-b professionals who are looking to buy or sell products and services online," said Bill Furlong, president and partner of SearchChannel, a vertical applications services provider that specializes in developing relevant and focused search engines for a variety of media companies.

"Vertical search is the wave of the future and will soon be the search tool and advertising vehicle of choice for the business world. There is an immense, untapped library of content that is either not ranked highly enough or is not even available to be indexed. Vertical search will serve these deeper information searches," Furlong added.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060509/cgtu059.html?.v=49

Verticals - Opportunity for Smaller Publishers

According to Chuck Richard, VP of Outsell Inc, online ad spending will grow 19% this year and trade web sites will grab 12% of the total online ad spend.

http://www.btobonline.com/article.cms?articleId=27973

The Future of Microsoft Search

Reports indicate that Steve Ballmer has made search a priority.

At the annual Microsoft Research Asia (MRA) Innovation Day, Microsoft displayed next-generation technologies from its Asian research center where at least a third of their showcases were search-related.

Judging by its showcase of future technologies, Microsoft is clearly steering its focus strongly toward search, an area which the software vendor admits it is still lagging behind.

http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/business/stories/146285.html

"The Hyper-Relevant Zone"

The Hyper-Relevant Zone is where a search engine showcases a selected result or vertical search option atop its natural results.

In this MediaPost article: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=42339 the idea of Google presenting these listings may present a conflict of interests with advertisers.

While not in the advertisers best interest, it certainly seems to be hard to argue that consumers and users don't benefit from this treatment.

ReedLink Integrates Reed Business Verticals

Reedlink www.reedlink.com has integrated into it's site the directories from over 15 vertical publications by Reed Business Information.

With the additions of these directories, there are now over 50,000 different manufacturers and over 15,000 product categories on the site.

News Corp. Buys Stake in Simply Hired

Simply Hired announced that it has raised $13.5 million in it's third round of financing, through a purchase by Fox Interactive Media. The job search vertical now has raised $17.5 million in financing.

News Corp. recently consolidated all of their online properties under the Fox Interactive Media banner.

http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=9152