Like the "Dueling Reporters" (click to see animated image) compete with each other to be noticed, the "natural organic" SERP listings ("editorial" search results that are monetarily non-biased for ranking purposes vs. paid listings), and the vertical search portal organic SERP listings (same as "natural organic" listings, but primarily found within the "vertical search tabs" on top or near the main "web" search window) compete with one another for your attention.
The vertical organic listings have the advantage of being found on top of the regular organic listings (as in this "George Bush" SERP, which has three "News" tab results). This is an example of Vertical Creep. This means that if the Vertical Aggregator Creep Solution were to be employed, that possibly many of those same vertical aggregator web sites would show up at the top of the 1st SERP anyway! Vertical Creep is happening more and more on Google and many other search engines, and Yahoo promotes them as "Shortcuts" to relevancy.
Back on 12/2/03, Danny Sullivan wrote "Searching With Invisible Tabs" which means that since you don't have to click on the "News" vertical search tab to get some of the resultant organic listings from that vertical index, the "News" tab was "invisible" to you. On 8/8/05 at the SES San Jose Conference Danny said in this recap of the session on "Vertical Creep Into Regular Search Results" concerning vertical creep's progress: "But the engines are still hesitant about automating. Organic isn't going away, but it will be the organic on the verticals that is the future." and "The "creep" is coming in slowly as the engines increasingly automate the process. Danny feels that at some point, when the engines "flip the switch," people may be surprised at the change."
Therefore, if we were all see more and more vertical aggregator web sites from the proposed vertical search tab "Buyer Guide Directories", that would negate the "separate catagory" effect! It would also mean that more commercialized results would be in the regular, natural organic SERP listings. Danny said about this on 12/3/05: "Over-commercialization could also happen. The specialized databases are more likely to involve payment for inclusion. No one wants to feel like every query is only going to be satisfied by those who've paid."
This 11/6/03 article was referred to by Danny on 12/3/03, exposing the "not so clear and conspicuous" disclosure of how rankings were done in some of the shopping/price comparison B2C aggregator web sites such as BizRate.com and Shopping.com. I'm glad to say that both now still have the small words "Featured Store" (NOT in RED colored text) above the retailer name made into a link that goes to a small disclaimer statement (saying that the top 3 to 5 ranked retailers pay for those positions). But, Reviews.CNET.com only has a way to sort by other criteria than "Merchant", which then changes the ranking. I dislike this, as I had a bad experience with eCost.com (the #2 ranked retailer under the default "Merchant" column). E-Cost.com probably is paying for that logo and gets a "rotated" position.
Lastly, many of the B2B Industrial vertical aggregator web sites set up their ranking by who pays them the most money for positioning within the individual headings (catagories). So, I guess I'm asking you if you think that Vertical Creep means shortcuts to more relevant listings, or does it mean more confusion by the consumer-buyer about who to buy from? I know it means more intrusiveness into that 1st SERP where many online search users THINK that the top organic positons are the most relevant. What do you think?
Animated image courtesy of www.artie.com.
Comments