Going Vertical...Again

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By Steve Smith, Digital Media Editor for min, min's b2b and min's Digital Media Report

In business information, vertical search is a topic that just won't go away, even if very few traditional media publishers have leveraged the idea very effectively yet. Some of the mega verticals like GlobalSpec and SearchMedica are making a model of it, and they have attracted dedicated followings. So many B2B magazine vendors have tried and tried again to convert their audiences into vertical searchers, but few category leaders have emerged. And why not?

Once again, a vertical search provider, in this case Convera, and an independent research firm and e-consultancy, remind us that the market seems forever fertile for specialized search. The new study finds that 93% of respondents are "very" or "quite" likely to use a search engine dedicated to their specific field, although most still go to Google for their first swipe at a topic and are happy with (or just put up with) the results.

Vertical search sounds logical to most business users. Who wouldn't want a more narrowly focused engine that delivers targeted results? And yet the actual usage figures belie the appeal. More than 30% of users say they spend 1 to 3 hours a week conducting business related searches, and another 27% do so 3 to 5 hours a week. But 91% say they tend to rely on the popular search engines as their mainstay, while only 7% say they use a vertical engine multiple times a day. The numbers for vertical search do escalate as the frequency declines: about 19% of business searchers go to them about once a day, and 19% go about once a week. Still, about a third of business users say they go to vertical search infrequently, and 21% say they never do. Curiously, only 7% of users rate the results from vertical search as "excellent" compared to 27.5% who give top grades to general search. Most rate vertical search as merely "good" or "average."

It is a puzzle. On the one hand users think that vertical search is a good idea, and yet publishers continue to have trouble getting their professional constituencies interested. Moreover, there is a lukewarm response to the vertical search people are conducting. Is the disinterest a product of previous disappointments? Are specialized and professional users perhaps more picky about the results a targeted engine would provide. We are not sure. One clue comes when business users are asked about the "disadvantages" of vertical search. Chief among them (38%) is the lack of a good engine in their field and the second close behind (32%) is that results are not comprehensive enough. It sounds to me as if professionals are finding some semblance of vertical search in their segment, but just don't find it broad enough or much better than a general search.

It is interesting that from the publishers' perspective vertical search also sounds like a good idea, mainly because it reinforces the brand and battles Google's poaching of their community. But, at the same time, about a third of publishers polled still feared that old bugaboo of pointing users to other sites.

In addition to results, users also have to contend with the uneven visual quality and ad-choked nature of some vertical engines. In some we have seen, the desire to pitch the lead-generating product overwhelms the results themselves, even as the publishers seem to think that advertising in this context is relevant information. Google sets a very high bar for speed and usability, if not always for results, so any vertical coming into the market has to contend with a high bar for both user experience and interface.

Somehow, through all of these numbers, you can see a kind of malaise over vertical search that keeps the platform in a constant state of becoming.

So long as general search is just good enough, and online habits continue to die hard, it seems very difficult to move the user beyond Google. Without significant investment in proprietary or well-formatted content specific to an industry's needs, it is hard to make the case with audiences that they should change from a messy but massive search approach to a targeted, so-so approach. Theoretically, quality and focus should prevail. In reality, good-enough content is king.

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