What IS a vertical search engine?
One of the great debates in vertical search argues the definition of “vertical search engine.” I will address this in some detail, as the distinction is highly significant from a search engine marketing point of view. To state it very briefly, not all vertical search engines are web search engines. The first key is in the definition of a search engine. Literally speaking, I would define a search engine as a means to locate information contained within a defined information source. In the case of major web search engines, like Google or Yahoo, that information source is the entire World Wide Web. But the World Wide Web is not the only thing worth searching! Your operating system is outfitted with a local search engine for your computer files and many web sites have search tools for just their own resources. But when we discuss search engine marketing, we’re not discussing how to give your website more prominence within some site’s internal search results! The question comes down to data
