Google itching closer to Troogle?

Pleasing in some respects, but we single-handedly managed to upset perhaps the biggest internet company on the planet last year.

This was not mischief making on our part [of course not] - we were just reporting the endless gossip sweeping through the travel sector concerning Google and its supposed plans to launch a travel vertical search engine.

At the time Google worked tirelessly to deny any such rumours. We believed 'em...

It now appears that rather than launch a standalone product, Google is quietly introducing various elements - such as today's news, concerning maps - from across its portfolio of products which, given time, will certainly give users a travel-based portal.

Obviously the biggest element, searching only within travel verticals, will be an enormous leap but some might suggest it wouldn't take much to modify the Google Co-Op tool (which we use on the right-hand side of this blog) to narrow search results for users.

So here is the new map element introduced on the UK site for hotel search results.


And here is a rather cheeky mock-up of Troogle, courtesy of SearchEngineWar [we've shown this before, but it's worth publishing again].

It would not be a massive jump would it?

Obviously Google would be changing a fundamental aspect of its natural search strategy, if it were to allow users to obtain results only from travel-related sites.

But asking users to insert a piece of code outlining which sector it is most suited for - like travel - could be a one way of determining if a site can be featured on a vertical search. Policing it would be a nightmare, of course...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution