Universal And Blended Search: How The Search Revolution Effects You!

August 17, 2009  |   Posted in Blog, Search Marketing News   |   9 Comments   Tags: advertising, agencies, blended search, brands, dr larry cornett, free search engine, google, john battelle, online, search engine, search engines, search evolution, Search marketing, seo, ses, universal search, Vertical Search, website

Google and Yahoo are in the process of drastically altering their search results, the reaction has catalyzed one of the biggest paradigm shifts the search industry has experienced. Search is evolving as Google Universal Search has arrived, and has obviously stirred up mixed emotions within the Search Marketing community, but our view is that in the wake of this change hides untold opportunity for agencies, Maketeers and brands. Gone the days where Googles SERPS are just a list of ten blue links, and meta descriptions. Users will have to sift through a diverse set of content such as video, images, shopping, feeds, book recommendations, twitter and blog feeds and much more.

Implications For Your Brand!

This obviously has huge implications for previously indexed sites and brands. Business have to adopt a more universal methodology when optimizing and branding content. This will engage the searcher with as many of these additional properties which will now be included in standard search queries, if they do not, they will be lost in the noise once more!

Engage Or Die

That being said universal search is here, and here to stay, adapt or die is the message reverberating throughout the search community. If brands choose to engage with multiple mediums, then surly the searcher will have a richer user experience, and the brand will have greater opportunity for branded impressions right? But which stakeholder within your organization will this task fall on? Why the good old CMO of course. CMO’s who are already engaged with search marketing must learn to adapt and move with the change, embellishing their online artifacts to include Universal search within their media spends. Brands and organization who are just entering this space must also be made a aware of Universal and Blended Search, and engage with it as much as possible. Its my belief that companies who do not optimize a range of content, will see a diminished CTR and traffic volume.

What Is It?

Yahoo as always are in hot pursuit, naming their new SERP output ‘Blended Search‘  increasing integration of  video and photos directly in search results, and Search Assist which feeds suggestions and query refinements to the user. Yahoo’s version of Universal search aims to work in  much the same way.

So “Universal Search” as Google defines it:

Over several years, with the help of more than 100 people, we’ve built the infrastructure, search algorithms, and presentation mechanisms to provide what we see as just the first step in the evolution toward universal search. Today, we’re making that first step available on google.com by launching the new architecture and using it to blend content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into our web results.

Historically search rankings focused primarily on HTML based text content, optimized by keywords, relevancy, meta data and all those other lovely SEO methods. With the shift to Universal Search, mixed within the regular content will be media rich properties such as images, video’s, maps, books, shopping feeds and much more. If a brand or business engages and optimizes with all these mediums, then their coverage an brand value must be greater for it.

What About Vertical Search?

Googles organic results for several years have included a results  filtering system, dividing the SERPs content into verticals, this had the obvious name of Vertical Search, but due to lack of use of these filters, Google has evolved the concept. Many people just didn’t know vertical search existed, and I think if google had made the vertical filter a little more prominent then a larger number of user would have used them, user interface design for dummies guys.

Vertical search is part of a subset now aptly named “specialized” search, it consists of search engines focusing on slices of content such as news or images. For instance avideo search engine would simply relay video results excluding all other results. Or a books search engine would topically relate too author and book information only…simple! What universal and blended search does is combine that search data. and outputs a mix of results; the user can still filter the results. Search engines have effectively taken the default choice out of the hands of the user.

The images below shows the old model of vertical results and below the new model of blended results now not necessarily structued in a linier manor. Previously a query on google would only return webpages (html text) and document content. A user now will be faced with mixed media results.

Challenges for Search Agencies

Agencies are often to slow to move with changes in industry, as a result of client uncertainty or institutionalized MD’s. What ever the case the big bears in the room, Google and Yahoo have repainted the walls, this new search paradigm cant be ignored and its not going to go away! Agencies and search intuitions have to lead brands to water, advocating the benefits of this change with confidence; after all this universal search is free, and billable right? Its a fantastic opportunity for brands to engage with there user base through mixed media, for free, ….well the cost of content production and optimization, but still a low cost of entry. I for one, am excited and inspired by the change, and will be shouting about Universal and Blended search from the rooftops for some time to come!

What do the pro’s say about all of this? John Battelle at SES

So what do the search engines say? Dr. Larry Cornett from Yahoo

Let us know your thoughts on this subject, has your brand engaged with this? Are you an agency? How have you updated your SEO strategies for the change?