The Value of Vertical Search for B2B Marketers

Excellent analysis from the latest eCommerce Times:

The ability of specialized online marketplaces to generate intelligence-rich, contactable and highly measurable sales leads is nothing short of profound, and those marketers who are already on this bandwagon have been reaping the benefits.

A true vertical search engine is based on three fundamental principles.

First, a vertical search engine is all about context. In this regard a good vertical engine can divine the user's probable intent, unlike a mass market engine. For example, when an engineer queries for "gyros" they are not expecting Greek sandwiches to be returned in the search results. They expect the context to be all about engineering.

The second principle is organization. A vertical engine should ideally be organized to align with workflow and job tasks of the user. Think of an "information cockpit" for a specialized user group.

The third principle is that of access. By this we mean that a good vertical engine must be complete, and that means that it must provide the user with access to content from both the open, hidden and dark Web. The index of a vertical engine therefore must contain hard-to-find (hidden) content and important content off limits to mass market crawlers.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/

More Google Labs Usefulness

Google Co-Op is an amazingly neat tool from the Google labs.

The Co-Op works as a collation engine within your own information management system. An interesting problem with Co-Op is with privacy concerns as personal search results can be obtained.

It's worth a look and has tremendous promise.

How Yahoo can Beat Google

Interesting post on SeekingAlpha. The suggestion is that Yahoo can beat Google by conceding search, then placing more value and resources into vertical search, blogs and video ads.

http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/19192

Google Launches Custom Search for Site Owners

Google's Custom Search Engine (CSE) product will allow site owners to choose which Web sources to crawl and let them leverage their community of users to improve that index and results.

Marketers and other site owners can use the platform to launch specialized search engines focused on the areas of their expertise. Ads will be sold and served through AdSense for Search.

Google executives called CSE one of the company's most important product releases in Q4.

http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623761

Google to Improve Search Interface

Google will begin to coordinate their main search function across vertical categories to make it easier for users to perform a single search and receive results from multiple types of media and content, said Google co-founder Sergey Brin Oct. 19."When you do search you will see, for example, images and news stories and products across the top that you can click to," said Brin.

"There are increasingly many ways that we are integrating together all of our search offerings so you don't have to pick where you're going to search first."Brin did not reveal any specifics of how this change will be implemented.

Currently, when you search through Google's main search interface, the results page will display pure results, image results, a drop-down refinement box, or a mix of those, depending on the search terms.

http://googlewatch.eweek.com/blogs/google_watch/

Microsoft Tests Search Clustering Tool

Microsoft has launched new search results clustering (SRC) technology that allows users to more efficiently navigate the fruits of a web search.
The SRC beta allows users to view results according to 'clusters' ranked in a navigation pane on the left side of the results screen. This is being developed by the Web Search and Mining group based in Beijing, China.

The group is looking at several key areas, such as vertical search, multimedia and mobile search, to help bring structure and interrogation services to the information available on the web after years of chaotic growth.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2166379/microsoft-tests-search-results

Reliance on Search is a Scary Prospect

CEO Gregory Maffei of Liberty Media, best known for bringing QVC to the world shared his forecasts on the future of e-commerce during his keynote at "Differentiating in a Converging World" on Oct 12.

Mr. Maffei said a serious obstacle to online business could be the rising cost of clicks on major search engines.

The growth of vertical search engines, which provide a focused place for searchers and the potential for better leads for marketers, may be one solution.

http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-commerce/38567.html

Rules for Successful B2B Search Marketing

From the latest Search Insider:

1. Know who's the buyer and who's the influencer.

2. Realize what the intent of the researcher is.

3. Understand complex buying cycles and the possible touch points with search.

4. Be prepared to build relationships with search leads.

5. Don't ask for too much too soon.

6. Understand the Complexity of the Keyword Universe.

7. Know the roles of general and vertical search portals.

8. Realize that education is a necessary evil.

9. Be prepared to lose control.

10. Understand the buying process of your prospect, but don't surrender to it.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=49531

Consumer Electronics Vertical

A new consumer electronics vertical recently launched called Retrevo. The key difference between using Google and Retrevo is that Retrevo concentrates on reviews and articles about products, not storefronts.

If you're searching for more information about a specific product, Retrevo will only show you editorial reviews, comments, blog posts and forum posts about the product. It weeds out hits from storefronts like Amazon, BestBuy and the like. You also don't get any ads, eBay pages or auto-generated spam blog hits. Yet another reason to use vertical engines for relevance.

www.retrevo.com

Work.com - Destination for Entrepreneurs

Work.com is an excellent site desigened for entrepreneurs. The topics have a business focus, therefore the guides and results are focused to the needs of small business owners.

Users on Google, Yahoo and others are overwhelmed with results that in many ways do not serve their needs. In the format that Work.com uses, the clutter is eliminated, the results are authoritative and the layout is clean and user friendly.

www.work.com

Ask.com's Smart Answers

Today's Search Engine Watch takes a close look at Ask.com's Smart Answers product.

Smart Answers are the informational links above the generic 10 blue links on many SERP pages. Many people are familiar with news headlines or images popping up for certain searches, but Ask has many other Smart Answers that are appearing more frequently. Ask says it is serving "millions" of these Smart Answers each day.

For the "vertical" market, they display results from Ask's non web-search catalogs, including image search, news search, shopping search, map search and more. Example: http://www.ask.com/web?q=gridiron+gang&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir

Ask.com is doing some really intersting and smart things to position themselves as an alternative to Google.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3623646

The New Vertical Search

Taking the very intersting www.farecast.com web site, Gary Stein makes the point that vertical engines of the next generation will be "to be" engines rather than "glimpses into now"

Farecast.com takes historical data and applies it to what it believes the future will hold for airfares on various airlines when users search for fares between segments. This differs from the old vertical model of Travelocity, which simply crawled sites and displayed to users what is currently going on.

Per Gary's analysis: All the vertical search players should take a long look at what Farecast has done and ask themselves a simple question: "what could we do with what we know to make the consumer's experience way freakin' better?"

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623618

Latest Forrester Report to Marketers

According to a new report from Forrester Research, marketers should focus not on popular search engines, rather focus on the generational differences in online search habits.

Search results from a general search engine account for 71 percent of site visits, with another 8 percent coming from vertical search engines, according to the report.

Those results are similar across generations, with Gen Xers, those between age 27 and 40, being slightly more likely than other age groups to use general search engines like Google and Yahoo, and Younger Boomers, age 41-50, more likely to use vertical search engines, like travel and health search engines.

The Forrester recommendation is for marketers to start with sound search marketing and optimization, then prioritize their efforts utilizing the engine that best suits their market.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623627