Genuine VC

« (The Beginnings of) Social Commerce | Main | The Search for Delicious Bookmarking Revenue »

December 7, 2005

First, Second, and Third Pages of Search

I turns out that I’ve been citing Charlene Li’s blog post about the Third Page of Search in a number of conversations recently. She summarizes the concept:

“The first page of search is the query page (like www.google.com), the second page is the search results, and the third is a destination page on yet another search engine or aggregator that's been optimized for that query.”

And continues,

“[A]s vertical search engines develop, they will actively try to source much of their traffic from the general search engines, training consumers to actually seek out these brand names in the general interface and then drilling down into parametric, structured search on the vertical search site that's better suited for their original intention…. I think we're seeing a subtle but fundamental shift in consumer search usage away from trying to find perfect destination page and instead, turning instead to aggregators and vertical search engines that understand (and can optimize for) the query better than the destination pages.”

Her post has got me thinking in the past month about where the traffic of vertical search sites is and will be coming from. However, the examples that she cites, pages from AllRecipes and CitySearch, are distinctly those of content sites – not of vertical search engines per se. I agree that aggregators of specific niche content (especially that which is user-generated, like the above two examples) will increasingly look for their permalinked pages to become the “third page.”

But I wonder if true vertical search engines, which don’t own their own content but rather point to other sites for the consuming of content, are experiencing or even view the third page strategy as a key component of generating traffic. Kayak (travel), Indeed (jobs), BusyTonight (local), Blinkx (video) don’t appear now to have spent sufficient resources devoted to generating SEO-friendly content landing pages. I’ve heard whispers, though, that some of these are making move in that direction, and will look for those changes. People vertical search site, ZoomInfo has already made strides in this approach, however (example). And it appears that Healthline (health) is working on it.

My hypothesis is that the line between vertical search engine and content aggretator will blur as more of these companies optimize their offerings to become the third page. With increased primary search engine visibility, perhaps vertical search engines will build their audience not by brand/destination building, but through an SEO focus.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.genuinevc.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/147

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference First, Second, and Third Pages of Search:

» One Year of Blogging from Genuine VC
As of a few days ago, I hit the one year mark with this blog, Genuine VC. 181 posts later, I am extremely happy with all of the time and effort that I’ve put into it over the past twelve months - it’s been very rewarding on both a personal and prof... [Read More]

Tracked on March 26, 2006 5:02 PM

» dog dosage on amoxicillin from dog dosage on amoxicillin
crestor zocor lipitortopamaxcheap weight loss phentermine [Read More]

Tracked on October 19, 2006 2:43 AM

» more web site traffic from more web site traffic
Sometimes, you will become overcome by the enormous accumulation of multi search engine information attainable. [Read More]

Tracked on September 24, 2007 9:17 AM

» Professional Dog Training Massachuesetts from Professional Dog Training Massachuesetts
Home; Contact; Advertise; Privacy; 2008 Dog Training Mas [Read More]

Tracked on October 9, 2008 6:43 AM

» Adult FriendFinder from Adult FriendFinder
I really enjoyed your topic and plan to share your blog with my friends! thanks for taking the time out to write your blog! If you want to learn how to get 100% free access to Adult Friend Finder check out my blog! [Read More]

Tracked on November 30, 2008 4:59 PM

» nupro dog supplement from nupro dog supplement
Just wanted to say your post is brilliant. The clearness in your post is simply striking and I can assume you are an expert on this subject. [Read More]

Tracked on March 13, 2010 4:12 PM