Vertical Search 70% down: Open platform to attack the electric dealer or a way out

Four years ago in 2007, a major site to crawl Alibaba and other industry websites commercial vertical search business-Gongs network declared: "Vertical search has become prairie, a year after the company will be break-even." ”

Now, the vertical search business has disappeared in the industry. This is not just a case of a vertical search industry. 2007, the growth of universal search stimulated the birth of nearly hundreds of vertical search, they all over the industry, some people call it "vertical search year."

4 years later, in a vertical search navigation called Love Search, Tencent Science and technology found that more than 70% of the vertical search business has been near death or forced transformation, such as video Search thunder, recipes search delicious nets, love search cars, search nets, and so on, and before the special train ticket search Cool news and forum Search Tiger also have already transformed.

In the first quarter of this year, all vertical searchers accounted for less than 0.4% of total search shares, down 55% per cent year-on-year, according to the latest data from Iris Consulting.

The total market share for vertical searchers is below 0.4%, according to Eric.

Where are the true reasons for the decline of these vertical search providers?

In recent years, Baidu and other general search giant to accelerate the launch of its own vertical search, while starting to do open platform, so that all kinds of resources have access to their own large search platform.

With the mobile Internet, SNS and e-commerce concept of the hot, the future to survive and newcomers to the perspective of how to enter the changing market? What opportunities are there? This topic recently on Tencent Weibo cited fever.

Baidu open platform crowding out vertical search living space

In the 2011, the most interesting thing about vertical search is to focus on airline tickets and hotel travel.

According to people familiar with the matter, where the end of the year is expected to go to the U.S. IPO, "at present, the company has made financial preparations, the issuance of employee options is quietly underway." ”

From the surface, it seems to go where the network in recent years the smooth development, to many vertical search business with confidence.

But internet commentators wake up on Tencent Weibo said: "Where to go to the air tickets, hotels and other services should be attributed to the electrical business Shopping Guide Service, not a simple vertical search." Search vertical space is limited, the new business model of Internet should be based on the multiplication of business value. ”

Internet commentators wake up Weibo

In the initial development of a few years, vertical search business because of precision, in-depth excavation, to provide some Baidu and other general search results are not available, by some users and advertisers of all ages.

But in fact, users are lazy, they only want to use a search box to meet a variety of needs, and the so-called vertical search engine and popular general search is not strict boundaries, and ultimately only a small number of loyal users.

Baidu's MP3 Search, map search For example, is essentially a vertical search of the collection. In 2010 years, where to go the net also first broke the vertical search and universal search technology boundaries. According to the latest news reports, where last week to the network and Baidu Alliance to reach strategic cooperation to solve the problem of ticket fraud.

In addition, Baidu and other big search engines have begun to do open platform, so that all kinds of resources have access to the platform, which is undoubtedly a strong alternative to vertical search.

Previously, Li and Kai-Fu Lee (Weibo) are also not optimistic about vertical search business. And recently, the Internet well-known critics of the heart of the rock on Tencent Weibo said: "Vertical search has been more and more no need to exist, the current vertical search is also the help of Baidu and other search engines open platform to obtain traffic." Search engine is one of the first access to the Internet, if there is no Internet access advantages, search will lose value. ”

Internet renowned critic Rock Heart Weibo

"Vertical Search has no market is no longer a problem, no one will deny the vertical search market, just said the vertical search business survival space is not too optimistic." One analyst stressed.

Is the future way out of electronic business?

On the one hand to face the vertical web site, on the one hand, but also face the competition in the general search industry, although the market on the vertical search a song decline, but there are people in this time to break in.

Just this April, a vertical search called "Youboy" announced the launch of a new model of "Search +b2b".

A noteworthy phenomenon is that the current survival of vertical search operators in the domestic business travel services and recruitment areas. But these two major markets, the former has Ctrip, Art Dragon, the latter has worry, Zhaopin, are the Red Sea market.

Internet commentators wake Up said: "Vertical search-type web site is one of the future way out." ”

In reality, last year, Sohu Zhang and Alimayun jointly betting the vertical search, but also rely on the original E-commerce business chain for industry integration. More stable performance to where the net also began to do E-commerce purchase. In the wake of the guest view: "Where to go even buy all do, indicating that the electric business shopping model is not easy to profit." ”

Internet commentator Bo (Keso) on Tencent Weibo said: "At the beginning must be from the undifferentiated standardization of products to achieve breakthroughs, such as E-commerce mostly started in book sales." The ticket is the same reason, you can help me find the lowest price, you will be useful. But vertical search for differentiated products may take time to explore, and simple low prices do not work. ”

Mei Tao, vice president of the third party consulting firm, said to Tencent that, theoretically, vertical search will have a greater application prospect after the development of electricity quotient, but whether it can really be done depends on three basic elements:

First, the core technology. Compared with the general search, vertical search has higher requirements for text information extraction and information structured processing, and accurate search results are related to user experience. "A number of companies in the vertical search business are claiming to have core technology in this area, but the real picture is questionable." ”

Second, the user size. This depends on whether the area in which the vertical search involves is large enough in volume and its own promotion.

Finally, the business model problem. Vertical search involves a limited range of areas and it is difficult to emulate a generic search business model. Only two kinds of flagship: one commission, two ads. But the imagination of both models is not too big, whether VC, or publicly traded capital markets should not be high expectations of vertical search.

China E-commerce Research Center analyst Yiaixiaokang that real estate, financial information, video class vertical search can quickly find a stable profit model. "The future vertical search will be mainly around the theme of life services to extend, especially the popularity of 3G, mobile search applications, some vertical search will be mobile phone application of the form of the client to separatist market." ”

In the future, whether these vertical search providers can use E-commerce and mobile Internet applications to win new business opportunities is still time to witness.

(Responsible editor: admin)