When you start typing a query into the search box at Yahoo, you’ll see a dropdown appear under the search box with some suggestions predicting queries that you may want to see Web search results even before you finish typing.

But presently you only see those suggestions for Web search results. I wrote about those Yahoo search suggestions in Predictive Queries versus Unique Searches.

It would be interesting to see suggestions from some of Yahoo’s other databases appearing, such as image search or local search.

A couple of recent patent applications from Yahoo, related to the “predictive queries” patent filing, explore showing how the context of a search and historic search patterns may cause suggestions from other search databases.

One of them also describes how a number of these vertical results could be presented together on a search portal page in response to a completed search.

Does this patent application describe what is going on at Yahoo’s alpha search? It just might.

The Search Equalizer

The first Yahoo patent application is the Search equalizer (20080016034), which determines a relevance score for possible results in different search contexts, such as Web, images, video, local, and shopping results, and shows them as suggestions in a dropdown.

This search equalizer might suggest predictive queries from different vertical searches that might contain the most relevant results for a specific query, while a searcher is typing the letters of their query into the search box.

It might also provide suggestions that are “related” to predicted queries. For example, a searcher starts typing in “interna” into the search box, and it shows a prediction for “international trade” and also for topics that might be related such as “GATT, WTO, UN, US trade policies.”

Tabs, buttons, or links might also be shown, which a searcher could select to see suggested queries from for query sets from other search verticals, such as “Web,” “Images,” “Video,” and “Shopping.”

Right now in Yahoo, when you choose a type of search other than a Web search, you don’t receive suggestions for those other search types.

While this process would show predictions from different databases, depending upon which button you choose, it might also provide predictive queries from the different databases in the dropdown regardless of which button you choose, based upon which databases it might think contains the most relevant results for a possible query. The dropdown predictive suggestion would include a tag showing which vertical that suggestion was from.

Thus, relevance scores may be displayed for Web based searches and for searches over one or more particular verticals, allowing users to compare and choose between them. This has the benefit of promoting effective and efficient selection of search contexts for queries that have a higher probability of returning relevant results.

The Query Categorizer

    The second Yahoo patent application, the Query categorizer (20080016046) describes in more detail how the different verticals are selected, based upon “historical search result selection data for similar sets of query terms.”

    That historical selection data for a set of query terms includes the number of times that someone might have “selected a search result from that vertical after conducting a search based on that set of query terms.”

Yahoo Universal Search?

While this patent application tells us that it is related to the “predictive query” patent, it also describes how it works in the context of showing a full page of search results after a completed query has been typed in and submitted by a searcher”

According to techniques described herein, in response to a user’s submission of a set of query terms through an Internet search engine’s user interface, the Internet search engine automatically ranks multiple verticals based on the estimated probabilities that those verticals will contain content that would be of interest to the user.

After the verticals have been ranked, a set of the highest-ranked verticals is automatically selected. Search results from each of the verticals in the selected set are presented to the user.

Thus, in one embodiment of the invention, the user is able to obtain a sample from several different verticals–and more specifically, the verticals that are the most likely to contain content in which the user is interested.

The frequency of searches from within the different verticals using specific sets of queries may determine whether search results from those verticals appear within a set of search results conducted within the default main search box at Yahoo.

The searches through the different verticals might include searches for “related query term sets,” so that for instance, the Yahoo document tells us that a search where the main query is “Britney Spears,” might also include a secondary query for “Baby One More Time” or “Kevin Federline.” Those choices might depend upon the time period of the search, and which of those related queries might be searched for more frequently.

Presenting Search Results from Selected Verticals

A number of different ways for presenting search results from different vertical searches are described in this patent application, including:

1. Segregating results from different verticals into different areas on the search portal page.

2. Possibly presenting those segregated results in an order reflecting which of the vertical results ranked highest.

3. Displaying some results in a nonverbal manner, such as thumbnails for images, or a thumbnail frame image for a video.

4. Search results from multiple verticals could also be shown in applications other than a browser, such as an email reader or news reading program, or a word processing application. These results might be shown in a “pop-up” window generated by one of these applications. The results might also be generated from a set of implicit search queries selected by the application.

5. The results from these different verticals could also be presented on a smaller screen, like a Web enabled phone.

As mentioned in a previous post, universal search is a hot topic here at SMX West.

My first session of the day: The Blended Search Revolution revealed insights from the major search engines about how they are ‘compiling’ the universal search results and how companies should take advantage of the opportunity.

Universal search leverages new content such as news results, images and videos.

Specifically, David Bailey from Google shared these five tips (some obvious, some maybe not) to take advantage of the specialized results:

1. Publish high quality, well captioned images
2. Create a Google video sitemap
3. Update business listings in local business center
4. Submit your feed to Google product search
5. Create a high-quality company blog

The important item to remember is that this generation of search should not be scary for companies. If you’re not quite ready to submit your videos to YouTube, start with a video site map, as mentioned above. The results may not come as quickly, but at least you’re in the game.

What is Universal Search and Why Should You Care?

Universal Search combines all the information within its Vertical engines/databases into one index to serve a single set of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

An example of Vertical engines/databases are Google News, Google Video, Google Images etc.

What this means is when you go to www.google.com, (their most highly trafficked domain) and do a search, rather than just getting websites from their main index, you will also get results from the News, Images, Video, etc databases as well. It is a more comprehensive results page.

Google Vice President of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer said the company’s goal for universal search is to create “a seamless, integrated experience to get users the best answers.”

Sometimes the information you are looking for is best delivered by video, or images or a news story. Currently, you would have to search each of the Vertical engines/databases to get all the information. Google is planning to integrate it into one search engine.

As a searcher this means easier access to various forms of information with only one search. It seems like a good thing, as long as the results are easily organized on the page. It could mean more scrolling to get to the different areas of results, depending how they lay it out. What To Do and Why Changes with the search engines can sometimes be confusing. There is a lot of information to evaluate and some decisions to be made. Before you decide anything, you need to understand what your options are. If your site isn’t already properly optimized for organic rankings, that would be the place to start. You want to make sure you have clean, search engine friendly code and a solid foundation, as well as on-page optimization. This would be the starting point, without this in place you have no hope of competing in the engines - with or without Universal Search. If your site is already properly and aggressively optimized, then you are in good shape to build on that and benefit from Universal Search. Since Universal Search will take information from the Verticals (like images, press releases, videos, audios, Blog postings, etc) you want to make sure that you have some exposure in each of those areas. Imagine someone does a search for what you have to offer, and in the Universal Search results your webpage comes up. In the same search your competitor’s site comes up PLUS your competitor has video, images and Blog posts as well. A searcher is more likely to click on your competitor’s site since more of the total number of results that come up will belong to your competitor. The other factor is the layout of the results page. We don’t know yet how it will play out. If Google mixes all the results together (ex: videos, web pages, Blog posts, images, etc all come up intermingled) that creates one scenario. It means you aren’t competing apples to apples for the top spot. It could be video in the 1st position and you are hoping to get your web pages ranked in the 1st position.

Another way of delivering the results would be to group them by category. They could líst all the Blog results, then all the video results under that, and then all the image results under that, etc.

If that is the case, you want to have something listed in each category section because if you happen to have a ranking in the last category section but nothing higher on the page, you are not likely to get a click.

What you really need to do in addition to adding content and optimizing your site, is also focus on getting something in the other Verticals.

Top 5 Ways To Participate in Universal Search

1. Google Image Search: It has always been a good idea to use images on your site for illustrating your products and services. Now customers can find your site via Google Image Search. Optimize your images with descriptive, keyword-rich file names and ALT tags. Use accurate descriptions of your image files for the benefit of those who might need to view the site in text only format.

2. Google Video (beta): Use descriptive, keyword-rich file names for your video files. Also create a keyword-rich title tag, description tag, and video site map.

3. Google News: Submit your press releases for display as news, and also as a new content page on your site.

4. Google Maps: AKA Google Local - this has been included in Google search results for a while. Give your site a local presence through the Google Maps Local Business Center where local businesses can get a free basic listing to extend their reach in the SERPs.

5. Google Blog Search (beta): Use social media and Blog engines to drive traffic to the site. Submit to the Google Blog search and have your Blog help boost you in the new world of Universal Search.

With a better understanding of the options, it becomes clear that in order to boost your exposure in the search engines and get new traffic you need to be proactive in anticipation of these Universal Search changes. Don’t wait until it is too late and you are scrambling to catch up.