Blended search, also known as universal search or federal search is the new wave to hit Google and other popular search engines. If you are an ecommerce site you need to leverage this phenomenon to make the most of your visibility online. If your ecommerce store is even remotely connected with search engine marketing strategies you want to leverage blended search strategies.

The concept behind it

Blended search is nothing but pulling out results from diverse media. Thus the results can include anything from video, stories, news, images, information pertaining to products or shopping, information pertaining to the local geography or even maps! Earlier, if you were to search for something, videos would appear in a separate tab and images would appear in Google Images section. Today, the concept of blended search brings everything under one roof.

More relevant results

Most search engines including Google and some of the other popular ones have been searching for ways to provide more relevant search results. By providing an assortment of results from different media, the user can have the most appropriate results and then select whatever is most relevant to their search term.

Yahoo Glue – blended search from Yahoo

After Google it is Yahoo’s turn to incorporate blended search into its search engine results. The new technology is called Yahoo Glue and currently this technology is only functional at the Yahoo India. Only specific subsets of search categories such as pertaining to sports, travel, entertainment, stocks, health etc. are covered by blended search at the moment.

How Yahoo Glue works

When you key in a search phrase Yahoo Glue brings up different panes each containing a set of results. These panes are from various sources both Yahoo as well as from the Blog Search of Google. You can expect to see videos, images, wikipedia entries, how stuff works articles and even RSS feeds as well as news feeds from aggregator software.

Comparison with Universal Search

The Universal Search technology was provided by Google in response to blended search, long before Yahoo Glue was in the picture. In terms of features, Yahoo Glue is not very different from Universal Search. You still get the same results in diverse formats like images, videos, web pages, new aggregators etc.

Why Yahoo Glue maybe better

One of the main advantages Yahoo Glue scores over Google’s Universal Search is in the way it goes beyond the conventional WebMD, YouTube, how stuff works etc. Thus, in terms of results, Yahoo Glue provides more comprehensive and relevant information. The battle between Google and Yahoo is ever-present and it is only a matter of time before Google comes up with a more sophisticated version of Universal Search, replete with all the winning features of Yahoo Glue.

No more one-dimensional optimization

Today, for ecommerce sites to survive the Web 2.0 wave and tough competition, you need more than just optimization for web pages. That was in the age of static text. Today is the age of video and interactive content online. Thus, if you own an ecommerce site and want to increase your visibility online, you need to go much beyond the informational content-centric web pages, Google used to favor so much earlier. In today’s age, you need to have a wide array of web pages, each supporting a variety of applications and interactive services.

Using interactive media

The relevance of blended search today cannot be undermined, especially by the ecommerce sites. To be taken more seriously online, you need more podcasts, videos and other interactive features on your site. By regularly blogging and posting fresh content on your ecommerce site you can hope to be noticed by Yahoo Glue and Universal Search. Aggressive is the key here and you need to go all out to have videos, tubes and other interactive content on your ecommerce store. You can tap into many social media interfaces and tools, which provide plenty of scope to optimize your site and make it blended search friendly.

Keywords in other media

While keywords still remain the pivot and anchoring point for most search engine results, it is the manner of their placement, which has changed. You now need to focus on keyword placement across other media like images and video, podcasts and other media formats to exploit the changing blended search trends. Using public relations effectively to build a buzz around your brand regularly through news feeds also helps get you noticed online. In this age of Web 2.0 and extended media formats, it is time you brought in this change in your ecommerce site as well!