Search giant Yahoo! could begin returning results which are a combination of text, images, video clips and even music.
The company, which has just launched a video player enabling videos to be viewed in most formats, plans to begin testing a blend of search results to take further advantage of all its content.
Using Manchester United as an example, Yahoo! search marketing regional sales director Richard Firminger: “When consumers search for Man Utd they are looking for all the sports content from the fan club, blogs to the latest clips all meshed on the page. Testing all of that is definitely the way we are going to go.”
Richard Gregory, chief operating officer of search engine marketing specialist Latitude Group, said that search engines in the US were already beginning to combine text and video content.
“The idea that search engines just give text results is very old fashioned. What they are trying to do is understand the intent of the search and deliver results in a format that is relevant to the user. It’s about giving you smarter results.”
Gregory said ask.com in the US had introduced askx.com, which provides a combination of content in search returns.
Gregory and Firminger were speaking at a presentation on Search Marketing and Travel organised by Latitude Group and online travel recruitment specialist puregenie.com
by Linda Fox
