GenieKnows is a search engine that has been in existence since 1999, slugging it out in the lower tiers of the search engine universe. One of a dying breed of independent search engines, it adopted a radical and somewhat dangerous plan 18 months ago. In an effort to give itself a unique identity that would make it stand out amidst its competition and appeal to its search-user market, GenieKnows went vertical, separating its offerings into three categories: Local, Gaming and Health. This effectively created three distinct search engines, each with its own unique functionality and characteristics. Company sources revealed the intention to introduce more such verticals in the coming months.

Mark Harper, VP of strategic relations at GenieKnows credits Founder cum CEO, Barbara Manning, with the decision to serve specific verticals instead of generic search results. This decision came two years ago, a time when smaller players were struggling to survive in a search engine market so convincingly dominated by a few extremely big players. Many were forced to close, unable to compete with those six giggly and colorful letters, Google.

Having already amassed a large base index of web pages using their own home grown algorithmic search engine and their ever-awake crawler christened GenieBot, GenieKnows decided to abandon the futile general search engine battle with Google and serve local search results, health information and target the gaming community. These were smart moves, and each of these verticals is growing at a rapid pace today, each presenting its own distinct advertising and revenue generation opportunities.

GenieKnows’s Local Search, probably the most important vertical, lists nearly 20 million local businesses in partnership with Localeze, a business content management firm. This innovative local search engine combines search results with satellite or graphic images, breaking the map into a grid system called Zone Search, helping to find the right street or address easily. Much of the content in GenieKnows’s Game Search engine consists of game reviews and tips, cheat codes, hardware, maps etc. It also displays gaming forum discussions. And the third vertical GenieKnows Health Search provides health and wellness information. Spidering most major media websites as well as medical discussion forums, it provides thorough results.

With its Local Search well established and the other two verticals expanding rapidly and having survived what could have been the harshest period in the short history of search engines, GenieKnows is extremely well-positioned to make the most of the endless possibilities offered by what could be a brighter era for alternative search engines.

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Tags: genieknows, Search Engines, vertical shift

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.