Google, Yahoo and MSN are considered the big three in search.  Recent significant growth in vertical search, however, has enabled it to overtake MSN as well as AOL, the fourth largest engine.  Vertical search encompasses image, local, news and shopping searches.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN are generally considered to be the “big three” in the Search Engine industry. Vertical search is becoming more pervasive in the changing search landscape, however, encompassing image, local, news and shopping searches. In terms of total search numbers, vertical search has actually now overtaken both MSN and AOL.

For the last few years industry experts have correctly predicted that vertical search results would increase dramatically. The term “vertical creep” has recently entered industry terminology, and refers to how more users are clicking on vertical listings which result from various online searches. Vertical listings now regularly appear at the top of “default results” when people search online. Google OneBox Results, Yahoo Shortcuts, AOL Snapshots and Ask Smart Search – all these are referred to a vertical creep.

Recent industry research has estimated that almost ten percent of Google visits eventually end up “downstream”, at a vertical Google property (i.e. Google OneBox Results, Google News, Google Maps, Google Image Search, Froogle). A similar percentage of Yahoo visits have also ended up downstream (i.e. Yahoo Local, Yahoo Shortcuts, Yahoo Shortcuts).

Companies looking to increase their website traffic and sales should increasingly consider vertical search as a dynamic way users find information. As a matter of fact, as a driving vehicle vertical search can probably attract more traffic to your site than all other engines, except Google and Yahoo.