Blended Search and Personalized Search

It’s no secret that search engines have become a significant part of everyone’s life in todays internet filled world.  Even though companies make it a point to include their websites on business cards, flyers, TV commercials, advertisements, billboards, t-shirts and even tattoos people will still turn to a search engine when they want to search for information of a product, service or subject.  It is important to know what’s going on when a person does a search through a search engine and what is going on because this plays a significant role in how people get their information.

            There are two popular methods known to anyone in the internet marketing and search engine optimization world when it comes to search engine search variations and that is the blended search or universal search and the personalized search.  They are both pretty controversial in that they both possess pros and cons like anything else, but it’s important to understand where the pros and cons lie and how to also know when a personalized search and universal search are taking place so you know whether or not you’re receiving all the information out there and not just the information the particular search engine you’re using thinks you need. 

            A universal search or blended search is the broader of the two searches.  The universal search lives up to its name by searching not just the literary internet but the entire world wide (or universal) web for videos, images, books, blogs, websites and audio related to your search.  This can be beneficial in someone who is seeking a lot of broad information on a subject but at times can be frustrating when the search engines mistake certain information to being relevant to your search simply because it contains the keywords you put in the search box.  A universal search can be beneficial to marketing companies in that they can have their media yielded in the search engines where as in a personalized search it wouldn’t be because the search engine has catered the search to what it thinks the user wants to see.

            A personalized search basically consists of compiled data and information from a long time user and relays it into a search engine search results page.  A personalized search has yielded criticism from both the user and a company trying to market their product or service because it’s actually hiding or failing to reveal new information to the searcher which could cost a company sales and cost a user potentially new and useful information.  It’s hard for a user to know whether or not her or she has benefited from a personalized search simply because they will not get the opportunity to see what a broader universal search would have brought them. 

The big three Google, Yahoo and Bing have all been working very hard at perfecting their algorithms when it comes to executing first, second and third page results via a users search.  The outcome of these algorithms will determine the popularity and significance of the search engine as it’s clear results are what matter when performing a search engine search and will determine whether or not the user wants to return after performing one.