Specialty Search Sites Bloom - ' Major Search Engines Create ' (
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Specialty business-to-business Web sites have been gathering and categorizing content on specific industries and topics since the late 1990s. The major search engines also have created some targeted search categories, said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research, a division of Jupitermedia Corp., in New York. Google, for example, has sites where users can search on specific topics such as universities, Linux and Microsoft. It appears to be filtering its broader Web search results, Elliott said.
Few B2B sites, though, have created their own Web indexes of a specific set of Web sites, he said. B2B sites that draw from general Web search tend to more closely filter the results to match their topics or industries.
"In some cases, it makes a lot of sense," Elliott said. "If its very technical information, for example, where theres a lot of noise in traditional search engines, then a specialty search engine might give you more targeted results."
KnowledgeStorm Inc. is one B2B site that has honed in on providing an industry-specific directory and search site for information technology. While it has considered creating its own Web index and search engine for IT, KnowledgeStorm instead has focused on tapping into IT-related content not available on the Web such as IT white papers, said Jeff Ramminger, executive vice president of products, technology and marketing at the Atlanta company.
"Theres a lot of content in IT that is a higher priority to deliver than general search results might be," Ramminger said. "The reason people are coming to us in the first place is to get away from the confusion in the general search space."
Ramminger said creating a specialized Web index might make more sense for GlobalSpecs engineering market and that he will be watching its progress closely. KnowledgeStorm also has focused on landing syndication partners for its IT content. In the next week or two, it plans to add Forbes.com as its 27th partner tapping into its search engine, Ramminger said.
The birth of more specialty search sites could open even more search-based advertising opportunities. GlobalSpec traditionally has made money by charging manufacturers to include their catalogs of products and parts on its site as well as by selling banner ads.
Paid search links, triggered by searches for specific keywords and similar to Googles AdWords program, also could make sense, Killeen said. He added that GlobalSpec is considering such advertising models but does not have specific plans for them.
Read more here about Yahoo Inc.s recent revamping of its paid search approach.
GlobalSpec is not accepting paid inclusion listings into its index of engineering Web sites but will offer a link for sites to submit their URLs for consideration. GlobalSpec plans to update its Web index with a monthly crawl of pages, Schneiter said
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