A vertical search engine, as distinct from a general
web search engine, focuses on a specific segment of online content. They are also called specialty or topical search engines. The vertical content area may be based on topicality, media type, or genre of content. Common verticals include shopping, the automotive industry, legal information, medical information, scholarly literature, and travel. Examples of vertical search engines include;
Mocavo,
Nuroa,
Trulia and
Yelp. In contrast to general web search engines, which attempt to
index large portions of the
World Wide Web using a
web crawler, vertical search engines typically use a
focused crawler which attempts to index
only relevant web pages to a pre-defined topic or set of topics.