New search engines that use visual search, rather than text based search, found in Google and Yahoo, may change the landscape for PPC and parked domains.
Checkout SearchMe.com, the largest in terms of traffic of these type of search engines. Type in a search term like “luxury bedding”, as see how the results are displayed. Instead of returning a page of text links with advertising on the top and side, results are shown with a page shot of the front page of each site, in order of its ranking.
Searchme.com is ranked by compete as being the 450 most visted site on the net, while Alexa ranks it as number 3,267.
If Searchme.com starts taking any significant market share, how will it effect PPC advertising?
It is interesting to note, the search site totally ignores an exact domain name if it is a ppc site. But, offers up a developed site that might contain the term(s).
I wonder what TM owners will do if they display the TM’s competitor?
Domainer
Google ignores parked pages as well, typically.
I’ve been using SearchMe.com for a few months now and feel that it’s likely to gain more traction and market share.
As they gain market share they might introduce more revenue generating elements to their pages. It’s possible contextual advertising might appear that’s similar to what we already have. Other than a few graphic ads on the homepage, they don’t seem to be monetizing their traffic in the usual fashion.
By the way, the visual aspect of their search engine is impressive but one of the most useful features is the ability to save specific results in “stacks” for later viewing or sharing with others. It’s very nice but there’s nothing stopping the other guys from implementing something similar in an effort to retain their visitors.
In order to make a big surge, SearchMe.com would probably have to implement all the other features the big guys offer such as email accounts, custom profiles, etc.
I checked it out. I think its neat, but not too useful if I was searching for something. You’ve got to go through 1 result at a time, and how does SearchMe make money? Where were the advertisements?
JP
Think this is the typical deal, build traffic, eyeballs then worry about making money later.
I assume the ad model is coming.
Quote: “Think this is the typical deal, build traffic, eyeballs then worry about making money later.
I assume the ad model is coming.”
That sounds like a business plan from 1999. 🙂
Personally, I did not like how my choices were limited. They need to include more results, mabye even blend those images with PPC links at the bottom
I think it is a really good change. Though the search results that are coming are not yet perfect, I think that is an aspect that can be perfected only with time.
And advertising will become so much more relevant, as the ads can be dependent on specific search results.
Also check out http://kosmix.com – It uses very little search technology to come up with a wiki sort of page based on your search. Quite good too.
Searchme is actually a copy of SpaceTime. SpaceTime is the originator and inventor of Visual Search on the internet. It lets you search Google, Wikipedia and Flickr in a neat visual interface. Those guys at Sequoia and Searchme saw SpaceTime and just copied it. Actually, Searchme was a failed startup called Kavam.