Explain how vertical search options like books, news, videos, flights, and maps differ from general search and how they can streamline the search process by focusing on specific types of content and data.
Vertical search options in Google, such as Books, News, Videos, Flights, and Maps, are specialized search tools designed to focus on specific types of content and data, rather than the broad range of results returned by a general Google search. These vertical search tools differ significantly from general search by their indexing scope, their algorithms, and the types of features they offer, all of which streamline the search process for specific types of information.
Here's how these vertical search options differ from general search and how they streamline the process:
1. Scope and Indexing:
General Search: Google's general search indexes the vast majority of publicly available web content, including websites, articles, blogs, images, and videos. Its indexing is broad and diverse. It aims to provide a wide range of results for a multitude of different queries, often prioritizing results with high authority, user experience, and general relevance.
Vertical Search: Each vertical search tool focuses on a specific subset of content.
Google Books: Indexes books, ebooks, and other printed material. It contains bibliographic data, some full text content, and page previews.
Google News: Focuses on news articles from reputable news sources. It indexes the latest articles, categorizes them by topic, and prioritizes fresh and timely news.
Google Videos: Indexes videos from different video platforms, like YouTube, Vimeo, and other video providers. It provides thumbnails, descriptions, and links to the videos.
Google Flights: Focuses on flight information and airline booking data. It shows flight prices, routes, and availability from various airlines.
Google Maps: Indexes geographical data, including maps, locations, points of interest, and local businesses. It uses location data to present results relevant to a user's location.
2. Algorithm and Ranking:
General Search: Google's general search algorithm uses a complex ranking system based on relevance, authority, user experience, freshness, and other factors. It tries to find the best results that match the user intent, but it prioritizes general use results.
Vertical Search: Each vertical search has a specialized algorithm tailored for that type of content.
Google Books: Ranks results based on relevance to the search query, popularity, author, and publisher reputation. It provides features like previews, reading lists, and reviews.
Google News: Ranks results based on source authority, recency, and relevance to the news topic. It emphasizes breaking news and diverse perspectives.
Google Videos: Ranks results based on relevance, view count, video quality, and user engagement. It presents results with previews and categories.
Google Flights: Ranks results by price, flight duration, convenience, and airlines. It displays information in a highly structured and sortable way.
Google Maps: Ranks results based on relevance, distance, reviews, business hours, and user feedback. It provides location based information and maps.
3. Features and Functionality:
General Search: Google Search offers a general set of tools, including advanced operators, image search, and more. It is not tailored to any particular type of content, and provides general use search results.
Vertical Search: Each vertical search tool provides specific features and functionalities tailored for its specific type of data.
Google Books: Allows you to preview sections of books, search inside books, see citations, save books to your library, and purchase or borrow copies. It's designed specifically for researchers and book lovers.
Google News: Provides breaking news, different categories, fact check labels, and an option to filter news by location. It’s designed to keep you up to date with current events.
Google Videos: Shows video thumbnails, allows you to filter videos by length, date, and source, and offers playback options. It focuses on videos.
Google Flights: Provides tools to compare flight prices, set price alerts, view flight details, and book flights. It is targeted for travelers who want to find flights.
Google Maps: Displays maps, directions, location information, local businesses, street view, and user reviews. It's focused on geographical information.
4. Streamlining the Search Process:
By using vertical search options, users can find specific types of content much more efficiently, rather than searching through a large array of various types of results using the general search. Here’s how each vertical search option streamlines the process:
Google Books: If you're looking for specific book information, searching directly in Google Books will provide results that include the book text, metadata, and links to libraries or purchase options, instead of simply showing results from online book stores or reviews.
Google News: If you’re searching for the latest news, Google News will present the most recent breaking news, organized by topic, and from highly reputable news agencies, rather than showing results from random news blogs.
Google Videos: If you need a specific video, Google Videos will give you a page of video thumbnails and titles that you can easily filter by date and source, saving you a lot of time.
Google Flights: When booking flights, Google Flights provides all the needed information about price, date, and flight duration from various different companies and it allows you to compare all of this in a systematic way.
Google Maps: When you need local information such as nearby businesses, directions or reviews, Google Maps provides all of this geographically oriented information.
Examples:
General Search: If you search for `“quantum physics”` on Google general search you will receive a mixed range of information, from wikipedia pages, to news articles about it, to science museum sites.
Google Books: If you search for `“quantum physics”` in Google Books, you will find books that are specifically about quantum physics, providing page previews, and showing information about the books.
Google News: If you search for `“climate change”` in Google News, you will find results from different news agencies, and breaking news regarding that topic.
Google Videos: If you search for `“guitar lessons”` in Google Videos you will see youtube videos, and other sources where you can learn about playing guitar.
Google Flights: If you search `“flights to London”` in Google Flights you will see prices from various airlines, and options for different travel dates.
Google Maps: If you search for `“coffee shop near me”` on Google Maps, it will provide local coffee shops with a rating system, directions, and user reviews.
In summary, vertical search options in Google provide a highly efficient way to find specialized types of information by focusing on a specific index, a specialized algorithm, and features optimized for each type of data. By using vertical search options, you save significant time and effort, enabling you to find the information that you need more accurately and quickly. The general search engine is designed for general use and will bring very broad results, while the vertical search engine is tailored for very specific areas, making them essential tools for any researcher who needs specialized results.