Google`s Latest Moves in Information Indexing - The Second Search Box
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In this section I'm going to mention something that's raised a bit of controversy among some content providers and online retailers, and justifiably so. You may have heard it referred to as Google's second search box. You may or may not have actually seen it yet, though, since in my experience it comes up for relatively few searches. Here's a screen shot of it; I searched for Wikipedia to turn it up:
You can use the second search box to perform a search limited to the site. I tested it with several other content providers; the second search box also came up for The Economist and The New York Times, but not for The Wall Street Journal. The logic behind this is that someone searching for a major, well-known content provider (or retailer, since it also comes up for Best Buy) will want to conduct a keyword search on that site. So Google makes it easier to do that by turning up a search box right in the results. There is a command you can use on Google to limit a search to a particular site, but this is more user-friendly; you don't need a black belt in Google Fu to use this.
So why are site owners of various stripes unhappy about this? I'll use a search on The New York Times as an example. I put "job hunting" into the second search box. In addition to links to articles in the NYT on job hunting, Google displayed relevant text ads on the right hand side. These ads led to job hunting sites that compete with the Times' own classified listings. This could lead, at least indirectly, to fewer people using the Times for job hunting, fewer employers advertising with the Times, and a smaller bottom line for the company.
Does that sound like a stretch? Then let me show you something that's a little less of a stretch. As I mentioned parenthetically, this second search box also turns up for Best Buy. Say I'm searching for Best Buy because I'm in the market for a cell phone. When I put "cell phone" into the second search box, here's the list of sponsored links that show up to the right of the main results:
Every single one of these companies is competing with Best Buy for the money I'm going to spend on a cell phone. The second and fourth listings seem to be accurately targeted by geography, referring to Miami-Ft. Lauderdale and Florida. And the last one in this screen shot even shows a Google Checkout button, to make things easier for me. Someone feeling truly cynical - or paranoid - might say that Google is helping their advertisers steal customers away from where they originally intended to go, and Google Checkout is providing the search engine with a little extra financial incentive to do so.
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