Originally published March 21 2005
Search engine users can identify their needs more closely with new engine, company claims
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Become.com is a new search engine still in development that distinguishes between shopping and searching for information. Studies indicate that 75 percent of all consumers research online before buying offline, which has caused a great deal of ambiguity for search engines. The engines did not know whether a reader was looking for information about her search topic, or was looking to buy. Become.com solves that by asking the user to provide some information before searching.
After four days of all search, all the time at Search Engine Strategies (SES) last week, I thought I was up to speed with search's bleeding edge.
Until my meeting this week with the newest entrant in the shopping search fray: Become.com.
Cofounders Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun, the team that built comparison-shopping site mySimon (which they sold for $700 million), dropped in for a chat.
A BIGresearch study went further still, finding close to 75 percent of all consumers research online before buying offline.
As Yang put it, "There's no context of user interest."
As search becomes the fastest-growing sector of the burgeoning interactive marketing industry, spawning billions of dollars' worth of new advertising and business models, there's been no good way of knowing if a term such as "digital camera" means the searcher is researching a purchase, looking to buy a camera, or chasing down information about using a camera he already owns.
On Google, Yahoo!, and their ilk, page rank hinges on inbound link popularity.
The Consumer Reports Web site just isn't linked much, but it is chock-full of buying advice.
Yun, cofounder and CTO, explained Become's algorithm considers outbound as well as inbound links in ranking results and penalizes sites with in- or outbound links to off-topic content or spam.
The company plans to add feeds midyear, shooting for 2,000 affiliate and merchant/vendor feeds by year end.
Shopping.com, in comparison, has just over 3,500 feeds.
Here's the part where you marketers out there feel like kids staring yearningly into a candy store.
Despite Become's unprecedented segmentation of searchers known to be shopping into research and shop modes, Yang told me the company has no plans to sell ads.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml