Introducing Blekko and It's Vertical Search

When making searches on the internet, using a search engine is usually our first port of call – and for the vast majority of us it’s Google. However, do you ever get those times when you are making a search using a term and, despite Google’s well published recent developments, it just isn’t relevant to what you want? Well this is because you are making a horizontal search. There is now a new way of searching courtesy of the latest search engine to enter the battle for supremacy – Blekko.

We should point out that Blekko, whilst offering something different, aren’t trying to replace or over take Google. Instead they have been described as “a new search voice” by Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, which is timely considering the loss of Yahoo (who gave their voice to Bing following the merger).

How Does Blekko and Vertical Searches Work?

So, what does Blekko do and how is their ‘voice’ different? Simply put, Blekko lets you conduct vertical searches with a number of perspectives. These have been labelled as ‘slashtags’.

Many of us regularly conduct vertical searches, for instance, it is the same as putting a query into Google and then filtering it through news or images to get a precise and relevant result for our request.

Blekko goes further by providing more options on these verticial searches. So for instance if you were keen to find ‘green’ views/information on a particular subject, just add this slashtag to your query and the results will reflect this.

The real value in this service is the ability to better manage and control what kinds of responses you get to your searches.

Too Americanised?

One early drawback, particularly for users not in the US, is that many of the results and slashtags are designed to accommodate American results. For instance, if you type ‘football’ into the search bar, the majority of the slashtags available and indeed results, pertain to American football.

However, this is an exciting new search engine to enter the market and it is clear to see what its value is.