Search for Tomorrow
By: John Gartner
Search giants are adding new tools and services in order to boost their mass appeal.
It doesn't take Edwin Hubble to recognize that the search universe is expanding. Instead of studying faraway galaxies to see the shifts in the cosmos, it only takes a glance at the home page of any major search engine to realize that search is moving at light speed.
The stars of search - America Online, Google, MSN and Yahoo - are attempting to extend their reach by launching a stream of search tools that provide custom filters of online information. The rate of change has sharply accelerated during the past year, and it seems that with every fortnight comes a new personalized, localized or visualized search method aimed at speeding up the delivery of relevant results.
A decade ago it was assumed that most users would find companies and information through portals that organize content into easy-to-navigate sections. However during the past few years search engines, led by Google, have become the primary resource for finding information.
According to an April 2005 Harris Interactive survey, Web surfers said they use a search engine during more than 90 percent of their online sessions.
"Google's sneak attack was quality," says Jon Cooper, vice president of interactive services at search marketing firm UnREAL Marketing. Instead of trying to direct users to content partners or handpicking links, Cooper says offering quality search results is the best model for satisfying surfers.
Google's model of throwing open the doors through advertising-supported search has won out over trying to provide premium content. "As long as the content is pretty good and free, people will take the path of least resistance," Cooper says. Google's ad-supported search model has helped search engine marketing grow to a $4 billion industry in 2004, according to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).
Tools of the Trade
Basic search tools provided by all of the big four include standard search, image search and news search, although the depth of the search results can vary widely among engines. For example, AOLSearch's news tool generates results from news wire services only, while all of its competitors include links to articles from newspapers and online media outlets.
This year's flurry of new search tools will generate additional volumes of Web traffic (and therefore advertising opportunities) by adding utility, increasing the level of competition and enhancing the significance of search in daily online activity.
Google and Yahoo have been the most active during a frenetic 2005 in rolling out new search tools, while AOL and MSN are also rapidly increasing the profile of search on their portals. Instead of taking away traffic from others, the new features will prompt more searches, and advertisers are expected to increase their search engine marketing spending by 41 percent in 2005, according to SEMPO. "The pie keeps getting bigger," says David Berkowitz, director of marketing at search advertising agency icrossing.
Google and Yahoo have added personalization features that tailor results so that the most appropriate links for the individual are delivered at the top of the results page. Google's Personalized Search enables users to scan their past searches to "re-find" information and uses the search history to refine the results. Yahoo's personalization service, My Web 2.0, similarly uses past searches to refine results, as well as enabling friends to share pages that they have visited.
According to Nielsen NetRatings, nearly 70 percent of all search traffic flows through Google (48 percent) and Yahoo (21.2 percent). Personalized search could increase Google and Yahoo's market leadership because it produces better results without asking users to change the way they search.
Most people use relatively simple oneor two-word search terms that lack the context to filter out inappropriate results. For example, someone who searches on "Lincoln" will get results about the car, city, university and the president, but a personalized search relying on previous experiences would automatically narrow the results.
"Changing user behavior is a challenge," says Gary Price, news editor of SearchEngineWatch.com and editor of ResourceShelf.com, because even after many years of searching, people still make the same mistakes. Since people won't change, "search engines have to do things to make results more relevant," he says. If what they are looking for is not delivered in the first 20 results, users will give up on a search, according to Price.
Getting Googled
Price says it's much easier for the market leaders to get users to experiment with new search features than it is for their smaller competitors. When Google introduces a new vertical service, such as a search of academic papers or product catalogs, Web users and the press provide plenty of coverage.
"Google is a PR juggernaut," says Price, adding that the word of mouth the company gets from enthusiastic supporters puts competitors at a disadvantage. Yahoo similarly generated considerable buzz when it launched tools for searching subscription content and comparison-shopping sites, even though similar services existed from lesser-known competitors.
The challenges for search engines not named Google or Yahoo in spreading the word will likely further the current trend toward consolidation in the search engine industry. Smaller companies that fail to distinguish themselves are likely to be acquired, according to Price.
Microsoft has become more serious about the importance of search on MSN, which previously served as more of a shopping and news portal and showcase for emerging Microsoft media technologies than a top-tier search engine. Microsoft decided in 2003 to replace the Yahoo search technology it had been using with its own search technology, which went online in February this year, according to MSN product manager Justin Osmer.
Osmer says MSN Search's product development is focused on giving factual answers and not just links. When users type in a question, MSN searches Microsoft's Encarta database as well as external resources for the answer, an approach similar to that of niche search engine AskJeeves.com. For example, typing in "Phillies score" will yield the score of the team's latest game as the first result, while "population of Seattle" displays the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Google and Microsoft are further enhancing the importance of search in everyday computing by integrating Internet and desktop search. Both companies have launched free desktop search utilities, and Google's Gmail email service replaces folders with a search model.
America Online is beta testing a new home page highlighting search tools that makes available to everyone a portion of the content that was previously restricted to subscribers. In addition to reference material and product search utilities, AOL now provides multimedia searches that enable users to tap into its considerable content partnerships.
AOL Search's video search uses technology from fellow Time Warner subsidiary SingingFish and includes clips from television shows, movies and music videos, while the audio search displays radio program segments and music tracks.
Yahoo's AltaVista also includes audio search technology, and Google is developing technology to search the text of audio, according to a report in the New York Post. Continued on Page 2...
Tags:
search engine marketing, google, unreal marketing, edwin hubble, sempo, search engines, path of least resistance, quality search results, surfers, msn, fortnight, search model, faraway galaxies, interactive survey, search universe, survey web, helped search, jon cooper, search america, custom filters,
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