Business executives need the right intelligence to make good decisions. Many go online in their pursuit of news, trends, articles, financial reports and competitive information, spending upwards of 10 hours per week searching online. Yet, a recent study by FIND/SVP found that 71% of executives are frustrated with the general consumer-centric search engines available today.

While 67% implied that they could not perform their jobs without Web-based search tools, the vast majority feel that they’re wasting time due to the poor results produced by general search engines. All this non-productivity adds up to big losses for businesses. The FIND/SVP survey found that irrelevant online search costs businesses $31 billion last year. No longer is irrelevant search just a consumer frustration, it’s a business concern as well – and a very expensive one at that.

Other market stats speak to the point. Statistics from Jupiter Research and IDC report that anywhere from 38% to over 50% of searches aren’t relevant. Even when results appear to be relevant, executives lack confidence in the reliability of the data.

Professionals need answers, verifiable and current data and they need it fast. Search is imperative to business yet it slows us down; why the paradox?

The hindrance seems to be the founding principles of many commercial search engines: try to be all things to all people, provide the most results for any given search and leave the measure of relevancy up to the end user. This method of including the largest scope of content allows the search company to sell more advertisements to all types of businesses, but it does little for the targeted searcher.

However, as paid search advertising continues to perform well for advertisers, more vertically-oriented search engines will crop up, helping us all become more productive. Tim Hickernell, a VP at META Group assesses the future: "The commercial search market has barely begun to address the untapped demand for highly-specialized and screened content and we believe this market is poised for growth in the next three to five years."

To remedy an overabundance of information at general search engines, try searching instead for a vertical portal that can provide you with more targeted content. Examples include Business.com and Find.com (beta) for business intelligence, Thomas Register for North American products and companies and Daypop for current events and breaking news.

For better, faster, cheaper answers: search vertically.

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