Google Moves in on Niche Markets
Oct 24th, 2006 by Dan Blank
Google is launching a customized search tool, moving in on niche markets, where smaller players have tried to be the “Google” of a certain industry. From the Financial Times:
“By letting companies and individuals build their own specialised search engines, it will also create competition for the many new “vertical” search products that have recently been launched on the web, she added.”
“Users of Google Custom Search Engine will be able to select the websites they want to be included in their searches, and add to this list in future by “tagging” websites they visit. Any searches will then return results just from that slice of the Google search index.”
Rex Hammock talks about his experience with providing vertical search prior to this announcement. On thing that is not clear about the new service is the search details that Google will provide. For example, in Rex’s current search method:
“…we’ve garnered a vast amount of insight from analyzing the search patterns of our users…”
Michael Arrington points out that while Google’s service is not unique, it is the first to:
“…bundle the service with Google Adsense ads and share revenue with websites that embed the custom search engine into their site. “