What's Different About "Search" These Days?

The difference between "search" and "commerce" depends nearly completely on what a user is trying to do, which would explain why Bing, Google and others traditionally in the "search engine" business are winding up in the offers, tickets and selling things business.


To be sure, all searches are related to acquiring information. But in an apparently-growing number of instances, that desired information has some shopping outcome. Mobile searches for "Thai restaurant" around lunchtime or "grocery store" are examples. 

Though the consumption or transaction might not be as immediate, information about airline destinations, schedules and ticket prices typically is linked fairly directly to a transaction. That explains why Google, for example, has  bought ITA and Zagat..

"We really think about Google as providing the exact right answers when you need them," says Larry Page, Google CEO. So "buying an airline ticket" is a "general instance of a problem, of just making search work better across anything you might want to be able to do," says Page.


Google is getting closer to one end of the sales funnel in other ways, as well. It's business is driven by advertising, which is closer to the top of a traditional sales funnel. Obviously, though,  the Google Wallet initiative will put Google and its many partners into the proximity of retail transactions at the bottom of the sales funnel. 


Even within the advertising business, Google is more focused on parts of the sales funnel that are closer to a transaction. PC-based search or display advertising arguably is further from a transaction event than a location-based offer on a mobile device. 


Likewise, a mobile search is more likely to be commerce-related than a PC search. If you look at Google's new "offers" effort, and its Google Wallet plans, plus the earlier commitment to develop the Android operating system (even the Chrome browser, to an extent), you see Google generally creating tools and platforms that move search closer to the actual end user shopping "transaction."

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