Search Profiles: Medical Metasearch Engine OmniMedicalSearch
I'm getting more and more excited about vertical search and the ability of an individual or small group of folks to really target an index - and their presentation of results - to a niche audience.

OmniMedicalSearch, a medical metasearch engine, is getting one part of vertical search done well - targeted results.

Consider OMS the DogPile of medical search engines: it draws medical results from more than 12 different medical search engines and news results from 10 different medical news sources.

The advantage to searchers is that OMS cuts out what creator Jason Morrow calls, "the snake-oil sites selling remedies and not providing reliable medical information."

Traffic to the site is growing. Jason said that:

In May, we averaged 2,027 page views/day.
In June, 6,119/day
In July, 12,322/day
August so far, 7 day average, 22,000/day

OMS also has top 10 ranking in the big 3 search engines for the term "medical search engine."

Jason said their marketing's been grassroots thus far. Here's how they're currently generating searches:

Link suggestions to universities, medical associations, and doctor, health and medical websites.

100 webmasters put the OMS search box on their sites.

3000 toolbar downloads.

FireFox plug in.

Word of mouth through email.

Press.

So here's how I think OMS could push things a little further:

First there's the Web2 search tab, which allows users to search just

1. .edu domains via Yahoo
2. .gov domains via Google by Netscape
3. .ac.uk domains by MSN
4. .org domains by Teoma

While I think this is a useful idea especially for straight info searches, I don't think it belongs on a medical search engine... or perhaps these results should be folded into the main medical search so that all the relevant medical results appear in the main results.

I sent this critique to Jason before publishing and he commented that, "I included [Web2] in with OMS because sometimes the coverage of those 12 medical search engines is limited to just the major diseases, health issues and medical concerns. Think of the medical Web part as a camera with a narrow lense, it focuses in on broad topics and specific topics better, and the Web2 is a wide angle lense. It gives you more coverage area."

Secondly I think OMS could be doing more with how it displays results, per AOL's snapshot for heart attack, where AOL's editors decided what other bits of relevant information to link to.

I'm not one who searches regularly for medical information, but I wonder if there should be a differentiation between the more academic and general-knowledge information. In other words, is this vertical search engine actually too broad?

I think that the advantage of a vertical search engine is that when the creators really understand their niche they can package results to meet user needs rather than simply delivering them in a list of 10 results with text snippets.

Jason mentioned that their "Related Search" options is currently in the shop for some fine tuning.

Best of luck to you Jason, and thanks for the interview.

I enjoy covering the big three four five of search, but I'm also interested in profiling other up and comers - I think that's where we'll find some wild answers to what the future of search holds. If you're interested in talking about your search engine project on SEL shoot me an email: SELowdown@gmail.com or call 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |