Vertical Search Engines: The New Way to Find Products

As online shopping options explode, consumers are demanding more targeted search options as they seek products. Results from Internet search engines can easily bury the best shopping options underneath pages of irrelevant data. And while comparison shopping sites list millions of products from thousands of retailers, consumers need more than big lists to move closer to a buying decision. The answer may well be found in vertical search engines which specialize in particular categories of web searches and thus produce a narrower and more targeted set of search results. For e-retailers, of course, that means shopping searches. This concept explains why Google started Froogle, a search engine devoted to web shopping, and why LookSmart has been successful with highly targeted, shopping portals. This session will examine the idea behind vertical search, lay out the options available to online merchants to participate in shopping and other vertical search engines and help retailers decide where they should be.