April 30th, 2010 by Susie

Online searches are wonderful things, no matter what you are using them for or what your preferences are, there is no mistaking the feeling of being able to type something into a search box and being given a great choice of relevant links and data in response to that search. As people in general are becoming more familiar and at ease with online searches, users tend to know what they want a lot more and for this reason, vertical searching has really come into its own and needs to be a consideration within SEO.

For those who are not entirely sure what is defined as a vertical search, it basically refers to search engines which offer very specific search results. One of the most obvious search engine for this is Youtube, as people only use this site as a search engine when they want to search for videos. Many people think that this angle to a search engine would narrow its popularity, however with Youtube recently being announced as the second largest search engine, it looks as though vertical searching is proving us wrong.

If vertical searching wasn’t the future, then we would not be seeing the likes of Google joining in with the vertical search trends. Google has elements such as Google Images, videos, maps and products to enable users to specifically search for what it is they are looking for. All of these variations to Google searches have proved to be extremely popular, thus reinforcing the theory that vertical searching is the future.

So what exactly is it that makes vertical searching so popular?  The most obvious thing is that there is likely to be a lot less clutter and wastage within the search results which is good from a search engine optimization point of view. If you are looking for a particular image of something, then Google images is more likely to provide you with that than the standard Google search would. The standard search will link you to relevant websites where you would then need to search within that site for the image required, whereas Google images will take you straight to it.

The downfall with vertical searches is that it can give websites a higher bounce rate which is not always good in search engine optimization terms, as people will literally be directed to the exact page they want. Ideal for clickthrough rates, but not the most productive for encouraging users to browse through your website and spend more time there.

This does not mean that we should ignore the importance of vertical searching, as both Youtube and Google have proved it to be such a success. The reality is that vertical searching will never replace standard search engines, but more work alongside them to give users more flexibility within their searches. Flexible SEO services which take this into account are the key to maximising your chances of SEO success.

Youtube is likely to be here for the duration and holds a strong position, however if other search engines are looking to join in the success of vertical searching then they are probably wiser to follow in the footsteps of Google and have various options for vertical searches alongside their main search offering.

Link to us

If you want to link to this blog, copy and paste the following HTML code to your website.