What are the best vertical search engines?
https://blekko.com/ allows users to create their own vertical search engines (slashtags) from a list of websites, url prefixes, or patterns.Here are some examples of slashtags that already exist, used alone and in combination with our /date slashtag that sorts results by date:Clean up of spammy categories[cure for headaches] https://blekko.com/ws/+cure+for+...[cash back credit cards] https://blekko.com/ws/+cash+back...(Note that of these examples are automatic, we added /health and /money based on the words in the query)High quality political viewpointsConservative: [ryan budget /conservative /date] https://blekko.com/ws/+ryan+budg...Liberal: [ryan budget /liberal /date] https://blekko.com/ws/ryan+budge...Nuanced searchPresident Obama in gossip magazines: [obama /gossip] https://blekko.com/ws/obama+/gossipTiger Woods 2010 articles about golf, not his marriage: [tiger woods /golf /daterange=2010] https://blekko.com/ws/tiger+wood...
What are vertical search engines technically?
There is open source software that does vertical search (Lucene/Solr), as well as a dozen companies. See List of enterprise search vendors for a list.
What VC-backed vertical search engines have been launched since 2001?
We're investors in several vertical search engines:Kayak.com (travel) founded in 2004RAMP (video search) founded in 2007FanSnap (event tickets) founded in 2007Additionally, in the travel space, Farecast was funded by Madrona and Greylock prior to selling to Microsoft in 2008.In people search, ZoomInfo has been funded by Commonweatlh, Ascent, and Vulcan. In real estate, Trulia (funded by Accel and Sequoia) and Redfin (funded by DFJ, Madrona, and Greylock) are thriving.
What Is Vertical Zonation?
The way that mountains have their own little mini "biomes"
What push-focused vertical search / matching sites are out there?
In the job search space there are a few tools like this, mostly from innovative startups like:Adzuna Connect - adzuna.co.uk - disclosure, I founded this onehttp://Jobandtalent.comIt's early days for this technology but my belief is that it will become an important part of vertical search in the future.
Is it worthy to build a vertical search engine for medical and health information?
I agree with Daniel - the key issue would be how to differentiate yourself. WebMD, Medicinenet.com, and Mayo Clinic cover conventional healthcare well. There is possibly a niche for someone to do the same for Integrative Medicine and naturopathic healthcare.