Why Google Universal Search Will Fail

I have been a huge fan of Google since coming online. Even before I got into internet marketing and SEO, Google was the first and only search engine I used as their results were the most relevant even back then.

That being said, I think they’re new universal search will only help two distinct groups of people… webmasters and researchers.

The Searcher…

The simple fact of the matter is… when people search, they already have in mind the type of format in which they wish the information to be presented.

For instance, if someone is looking for “how to information”, you may get some people who will consider both video and text however a large majority of people will already have a preference of one over the other.

If I am looking for “how to information”, I certainly will not be wishing to view results of news, images, etc. This will only hinder my search experience, not make it more effective.

The Researcher…

The only people that may be interested in universal search is people doing research on particular topics.

Bringing all material together for such a search would then be extremely helpful, especially if conducting historical search or similar.

The Webmaster…

It goes without saying that the webmaster will benefit if they can obtain ranking within their vertical (category), especially as the competition should be much lower.

Services…

How many people look for services online… an absolute ton! Google has already produced many different categories in there search so why have they ignored this huge market.

“Yellow pages” receives 20,000 plus searches a day as compared to “videos” at just under 11,000. So with a huge name and reputation that Google has, you have to wonder what their “smart” people have been doing at Google and not thinking or deciding to move into this market.

Why pursue a risky undertaking such as universal search with huge costs in terms of time and money when you have a proven market sitting there of which only requires one new search engine with little or no algorithms changes!

One must wonder.