Google Health - A Vertical Search?
Apparently Google has vertical search now, at least for the health arena and search for anything health related. The results page gives users the option to narrow down or filter to produce desired results. For example, I searched for Tylenol and it let me choose from various options including: uses, side effects, symptoms, interactions and alternative medicine. Clicking on “From medical establishment/authorities” gives even more options.
Clicking on a refine link shows you a new Google command syntax, or ”operators“. Interesting enough the health, or the “more” operator is not listed in its lists
Tylenol more:drug_side_effects
My opinion:
Basically, Google Health is what I expected — an enhanced way to search for health related material, but not really a vertical search engine. I like the service as it reminds me of a great product called kosmix.com — a vertical search engine that was designed to help users find health related content. As long as Google remains huge mainframe with many spider problems he can’t really approach the vertical search market.
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Send me a comment if you like to have more like this. I like to post some more “Google Uncover” topics in the future in the areas of:
- Google command syntax and its operators
- Vertical search
- Google spiderbot uncovered