A B2B survey of media and Internet professionals titled “Vertical Search Report 2008” was recently released by E-consultancy, an online publisher of Internet marketing reports and research, and Convera, a company that customizes specialized search functions for publisher web sites.

Time-challenged web publishers in various commercial and industry segments provided their insights on staying on top of business information, getting the most useful business information quickly and staying up-to-date.

·        Go Vertical for Search Needs.  Search engines and databases that specialize in a business or interest segment bypass more generalized search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Live Search. Information overload has fragmented even the general search engines into special-focus verticals that are consumer targeted, such as in travel (Hotels.com, Expedia), used vehicles (Autotrader) and books, electronics, entertainment (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Online).

“Go Local!” has long been the rallying cry in the whole foods movement (buying most edibles from regional growers, or The 100-Mile Radius Rule among food advocates) and in energy conservation green movements (thinking globally and acting locally).

Given gasoline prices and transportation costs, combined with buyer behaviors that favor local sources, it should be no surprise that buyer, wholesaler and retailer advertising is focusing on regional/local media as well.

Buyers seeking merchandise supply sources are as influenced by local or regional warehouses for faster and less costly shipments, as they are by opportunities to target specific regions with styles and features favored by local potential customers.

Second-tier search engine Ask.com has tried to expand its share of the search market throughout 2007 with user-friendly features and user-sensitive privacy initiatives.

For example, Ask.com paced the big tier-one search engines (Google in May, Yahoo! and Microsoft by September) by offering Universal Search Results: Returning multimedia (video, images, maps, audio feeds) plus localized search results. Like the Big 3 engines, Ask no longer asks search users to click on the “right” database to search on Videos or Maps; and some local searches no longer demand localization keywords, like city or zip code. (You may have seen Ask’s offline electronic advertising on this universal search feature. Spots were themed “Instant Get-ification” and closed with the challenge: Can your search engine do this?)

Ensuring Privacy by Erasing the Breadcrumb Trail