Vertical Search | Internet Marketing Blog

FTC: Google search bias is a part of innovation

Has Google altered its algorithm to favor its own properties in vertical search results?

Numerous publishers which now find themselves competing with the search engine they rely on for valuable traffic have accused Google of doing just that. Some in the industry have even petitioned antitrust regulators to look into the matter.

by Patricio Robles 04 January 2013 12:30pm 1 comment

US likely to pursue antitrust case against Google: report

In 1998, the United States Department of Justice and 20 states filed a lawsuit against Microsoft alleging that the software giant abused a monopoly position in the market to dominate the market for web browsers.

The stakes were high. If it lost, Microsoft could have been forced to break itself into two parts. And even though it eventually settled under more favorable terms, the case against Microsoft is arguably the defining moment in the company's history.

by Patricio Robles 15 October 2012 13:36pm 1 comment

Yahoo teams with Getty Images for image and video search

Is a big part of search's future based on content partnerships?

You might think so looking at the recent deals Bing has struck with Encyclopaedia Britannica and Yelp.

by Patricio Robles 21 June 2012 17:02pm 0 comments

Yelp inks deal for Bing Local Search

When Google announced that it was acquiring Zagat, it looked problematic. After all, Zagat was a publisher struggling to stay relevant in the digital age and Google was the world's biggest search engine. The potential conflicts the deal could create were huge.

One of the companies likely to have been most concerned with the acquisition was Yelp. Along with other popular user-generated reviews sites, it has arguably played a key role in Zagat's woes. With Google behind it, would the Mountain View-based company push Zagat content at the expense of a company like Yelp, which it once reportedly looked to buy?

by Patricio Robles 14 June 2012 15:45pm 3 comments

Google gets fashionable with Boutiques.com

In most parts of the world, Google may be the most dominant search engine, but as search evolves, Google will have to compete with other players for dominance in key vertical search markets.

The stakes, in many cases, are high. The Mountain View-based company's attempted $700m acquisition of ITA Software, for instance, demonstrates just how important vertical search is to Google.

by Patricio Robles 17 November 2010 16:58pm 4 comments

Google's travel ambitions take flight with ITA purchase

Vertical search is already a big focus in the search market, and Google has its sights set on the skies. And we're not talking about the infamous Google party plane.

Yesterday, Google announced that it is buying flight information software company ITA Software for $700m in cash. ITA Software's technology is widely used by airlines and online travel destinations, and "effortlessly searches – at a billion combinations per query – fares, schedules, and availability." That's why Google was willing to pay big bucks for ITA's technology, which it hopes will enable it to help passengers, airlines and online travel agencies find flights and fares more efficiently.

by Patricio Robles 02 July 2010 15:39pm 1 comment

Microsoft gives up on Bing Cashback

With Bing, Microsoft has achieved far more in search than many believed it was capable of. But just because Microsoft has managed to beat lowered expectations doesn't mean that Bing is doing for Microsoft what it hoped it would.

Citing a lack of the "broad adoption that we had hoped for", Microsoft announced Friday that it was shuttering Bing Cashback, which was a big part of Bing's shopping vertical search.

by Patricio Robles 07 June 2010 09:15am 2 comments

Are Google's SERPs getting too messy?

Google might as well have been called Simple. Back when Google was a new entrant in the search engine market and larger competitors were cluttering up their homepages with as much content as could be aggregated on a single page, Google took a different approach and offered internet users an alternative: a clean, if not sparse, homepage that focused on one thing -- search.

Relatively-speaking, that homepage hasn't changed much in the past decade. But what has changed: Google's SERPs.

by Patricio Robles 04 March 2010 13:34pm 11 comments

Bing keeps cooking up new recipes for vertical search

The 'verticalization' of search continues. Bing, which already serves up specialized search results for verticals including travel and shopping, is adding another niche to its portfolio: recipes.

Its new recipe results pull in data from popular recipe websites and give searchers the ability to display and filter recipe results via a recipe-specific interface. The goal, obviously, is to give consumers searching for their next home cooked meal one more reason to use Microsoft's 'decision engine'.

by Patricio Robles 22 January 2010 11:59am 4 comments

Ask.com jumps on the bargain hunting bandwagon

Everyone loves a deal and that's especially true when times are tough. So it's no surprise that bargain hunting online has become an even more popular pastime for consumers. From coupon sites to cashback sites, consumers looking to spend money have plenty of ways to get more bang for the buck.

Helping them get that bang for the buck is something naturally suited to search engines. And Ask.com is joining the fray with a new service called Ask Deals.