The Verticalization of Search  

"It's the hottest topic to talk about in the search business," wrote David Berkowitz about vertical search in his March 8, 2005 article, “Vertically Searching for Meaning.”

It took longer than we expected for the language we speak, vertical search, to excel beyond the long education curve we’ve faced for years, but it is finally receiving the attention it deserves with a plethora articles and research advising companies that vertical search is what consumers are favoring and compelling marketers to get involved.

At the latest Search Engine Strategies conference in February, HitWise, a company that monitors 10 million U.S. Internet users and 25 million user worldwide, as well as over 500,000 businesses, revealed that the “verticalization” of search to industry-specific engines is beginning to be evident. User behavior reveals that searchers are beginning their online journeys at major search engines, then jettison away to more vertical destination sites when their needs aren’t satisfied by the horizontal or general engines.

At the same conference, search engine guru and editor of SearchEngineWatch was quoted as saying, "I can't say it enough. Vertical search is going to take over." He urged marketers to learn more about vertical search advertising opportunities.

A recent study by JupiterResearch, “Vertical Search: Early Marketers Will Reap Rewards of Low Pricing” corroborates the trend and speculates that paid search will follow similar growth patterns as media markets like TV and magazines by general topic search engines giving way to larger number of vertical sites focused on specific subjects.

And that really is the crux of the matter. As we’ve discussed before, vertical search prevails over personalization in improving relevancy. Yet, in the blog world, there is debate over how to define vertical search and how encompassing it really will become. But in the details of predictions and debates, the true message can easily get lost: Does the Internet community find everything it needs at horizontal, general search engines? No. Why? Because they can’t possibly catalog the burgeoning data and rank the general appropriately to answer the specific: you asked for “[software] drivers” not “[golf] drivers.” But search for “drivers” at download.com and you’ll get specific set of results for software drivers.

And that’s what Internet users are coming to: find the site they want via the horizontal, general engines and get their answers, buy the products and find the people they seek at the vertical destination sites. Thus, horizontal and vertical search can co-exist peacefully; they are complimentary, not competitive.

As Om Malik, senior writer with Business 2.0 magazine, illuminated it in his March 16, 2005 blog, “Silicon Valley’s buzzing with Vertical Search,” ”You can’t go two steps on Sand Hill Road, the epicenter of venture capital without some money man espousing the virtues of vertical search….Google seems to becoming quite worthless everyday given that blog entries are dominating the top results. Enter vertical search.”

So there you have it. Vertical search has finally "arrived." Yes, it’s taken a long time for the truth about user behavior to be catalogued and referenced like it is now. Nonetheless, we happily report that the verticalization of search is what Vortaloptics is built upon and we humbly say, our product must have been slightly ahead of the curve.