The Site Y-Life Scoops Net. Inc. once competed on their ability to index the entire Web, today they find that much of their incremental growth relies on slicing and dicing their offerings into topic-specific categories that are easier for users to navigate.
Nothing is new about splitting search services into topical categories.
What is new is the race among search services to forge alliances designed to give them an edge in selected corners of cyberspace. If you view search engines as Web-based online services, it becomes natural for us to select some topic areas, pick key partners and go deeper in our content offerings. Offering such depth plays a key role in building traffic for the search sites. More than half of Excite's traffic now comes from content-specific navigation offerings instead of the company's classic search services, Kraus estimates. In much the same way that daily newspapers may try to distinguish themselves by offering comprehensive coverage in sports or business, the search services seek to differentiate themselves by featuring more complete coverage in topic areas likely to attract an audience that is appealing to advertisers.