For many internet users “search” = going to Google or Yahoo! and typing in a few words or a question about what they are looking for. Despite more having internet access commonly available at home and work, many users also “search” for a website address, not understanding the difference between the search box and a browsers address bar. (Hence the evolution of browser address bars allowing some search capabilities, and the new all-in-one Omnibox from Google’s Chrome browser.)
It’s no wonder, then, that users are often surprise to learn of different types of search. Search = search, right?
Vertical search refers to searching a certain type, theme or medium of content. Vertical search engines are nothing new, and major search engines offer various types of vertical search. Some examples include travel search engines and news aggregators. Google offers a variety of specialized vertical searches to deliver different themes and types of content like news, blogs, books & finance. They even have a search restricted to Linux content!
Over the past year Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Ask have been trying to deliver more relevant results (and deal with the slow user adoption of vertical search) by introducing blended results that serve to mix some vertical search content into the traditional ten text results. Often called Blended or Universal results, this new display offers florists an incredible opportunity to appear multiple times in the search results by providing different types of content on the web.
In this new series we’ll look at some of the verticals that are most relevant to florists: Local Search, Image Search, Video Search and Blog Search.
I hadn’t heard of vertical search since you mentioned it here. I often find myself searching in the browser bar instead of the search bar or on google.com I never though of things like you presented them here and always thought that search=search and that’s it.
I agree that florists could potentially get multiple spots in the searches by helping the searcher find what he really wants. I’m glad I learned something new today!