Vertical Search is the way of the future, no doubt.Search...

Vertical Search is the way of the future, no doubt.

Search "scribe" Bambi Francisco recently praised the merits of Vertical search in an article & what did catch my eye, was when she mentioned that ....

<......., it might be more economically beneficial for Google to charge one to three large advertisers willing to pay more than 25 cents for advertisements that are based on the context and demographics, because they'd have a higher probability of being clicked on...>

Looksmart currently have a total of 181 Vertical (special interest) Sites.

And here is another article today that sing the praises of the verticalisation of the web. But the proof is always in the pudding, so to speak!

< Here are some examples we saw in the recent study:

One of the tasks given was to research the upcoming purchase of a digital camera. This resulted in a number of related queries being used, ranging from very general ("digital cameras") to very specific ("Canon Powershot A530"). When these queries were thrown at Yahoo, the engine was able to differentiate and return appropriate vertical results. >

No mention of what Looksmart 'has under the bonnet', but let's have a look at some results for the same search terms.

Looksmart digital cameras

http://www.google.com.au/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=

Looksmart+digital+cameras&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

Looksmart Canon Powershot A530

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Looksmart+Canon+Powershot+A530&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

"camera enthusiasts" may care to critique the above results?

And, is Google phasing out Onebox, possibly? I WONDER WHY??

< Hopelessly Devoted to OneBox?

While we're on the subject, what's the deal with Google and verticals anyway? Search pundit Greg Sterling said in a blog post some time ago that Google had an "almost religious devotion to OneBox", its vertical label of choice. Could be, but it seems that a few in the temple of Google are questioning their religious affiliations. OneBox results have been a little sketchy of late. The reason this came to light is that I've just looked at a 100 plus sessions in Google for a recent study, and there were surprising few of those sessions with OneBox results showing. >

The article?

http://www.searchnewz.com/topstory/news/sn-2-20060814WhatsUpwithVerticals.html

Stay tuned!!