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Search is more than web text, Google learns


Searches on traditional services, dominated by Google, declined 3 percent in the second half of last year after rising for years, according to comScore, and the number of searches per searcher declined 7 percent. In contrast, searches on topical sites, known as vertical search engines, climbed 8 percent.

While traditional searches increased again this year, other data reflects the threat to Google.

In the first quarter, spending on search ads fell 1 percent, a significant slowdown for Google, according to IgnitionOne, a digital marketing company. Last year, Google lost market share in search ads for the first time, according to eMarketer, falling to 72.8 percent from 74 percent.

This year, ad spending on traditional search engines is expected to grow more slowly than overall online ad spending, a reversal. Its growth significantly outpaced that of online ad spending until last year, eMarketer said.

Google is not watching from the sidelines. It is making more changes to search offerings, at a faster pace than it has in years.

Larry Page, its co-founder and chief executive, renamed the search division "knowledge." Google's mission, organizing the world's information, was too narrow. Now he wanted people to learn from Google.

Google now shows answers instead of just links if you search something like "March Madness," "weather" or even "my flight," in which case it can pull flight information from users' Gmail accounts.

The company's biggest step happened last year, when it introduced the knowledge graph. While search generally matches keywords to Web sites, the knowledge graph uses semantic search, which understands the meanings of and connections among people, places and things.

A typical search engine, for instance, responds to a search for "Diana" by showing Web pages on which that word appears, from Wikipedia entries on the goddess of the hunt and the Princess of Wales to an engagement ring company.

But a more knowledgeable, humanlike search engine could know that you were looking for your roommate Diana's online profile, or that you were also interested in Kate Middleton.

"What Google is beginning to do is share some of the knowledge in the world that humans have in their minds," said Ben Gomes, a Google fellow, "so users can begin to communicate with Google in a way that's much more natural to their thinking."

Google calls these small steps that show where it is headed.

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