Amazon.com made headlines last week when it unveiled its new A9.com search engine, which offers glimpses of a slew of intriguing elements for search marketers and online merchants. But the company is tight-lipped about A9 -- which is currently in beta -- and how it's technology can be leveraged by e-tailers and marketers.
One thing is clear, however. Amazon.com views A9.com as a way to leverage its massive product database -- and information about customer surfing and purchasing habits, which it gains through its Alexa subsidiary -- for sales and marketing.
And Amazon.com won't be the only e-commerce site that can take advantage of A9, according to spokespeople. The site offers "e-commerce search technology for both Amazon.com and other Web sites," said spokesperson Alison Diboll. "This is an e-commerce shopping site. That's its stated goal."
But Diboll is reluctant to provide details on specific features.
"Right now, we're in a test phase," she said. "We're continuing to develop. We just can't begin to speculate on how it's going to be used in its final iteration."
Beyond what A9.com is saying publicly, though, a number of elements are already apparent that should prove reason enough search marketers to pay close attention -- even at this early stage.
Unlike most popular search engines, A9.com's primary features aren't made available until users login, using their Amazon.com username and password. That's because A9.com seems to deliver search results based on user-anonymous and personally identifiable information sources.
Search engine data is culled from Amazon's partner Google, from Amazon.com itself, and from the Web browsing habits of surfers using search toolbar provider Alexa, which Amazon purchased in 1999. (Alexa gathers user's anonymous Web surfing data, as well as information on results entered into its search engine toolbar.)
Like Alexa, and Google, A9.com offers a standalone browser toolbar that provides immediate access to A9.com searches. And borrowing from Alexa's model, it also appears to collect surfing data, which it feeds into A9's site rankings engine.
All three data sources had been available on Amazon.com, but have yet to be combined in a single interface.
Similar to Google's front page, A9.com's interface is simple and to-the point, with few graphics. It displays only a Web form for entering searches, and a list of the logged-in user's recent searches. Results from A9.com are decidedly more complex, however.
The engine returns three dynamically collapsible columns of results. The left-most column, "Web Results," showcases results largely syndicated from Google -- including four Google AdWord listings on each page of A9 results (two each above and below A9's results.) The results support Google spelling suggestions, but few other of Google's advanced search tools.
At first glance, the results on A9's "Web Results" page appear similar to Google's results. However, A9's results include some level of filtering (for instance, there's no option to turn off SafeSearch filtering, as in Google.)
A9.com also appears to take additional criteria into consideration when ranking Google hits, since placement on the returned pages differ from Google's ranking.
That may be due to the integration of Alexa/A9 toolbar data. For each hit, A9 displays a "Site Info" button alongside the returned link. On mouseover, the button displays information about the site that seems likely to influence placement in the engine: Site Info displays a site's "Traffic Rank," the number of sites that link to it, page loading speed, how long the site's been online, and other sites that are also visited by surfers. Clicking on the "Site Info" button brings surfers to an Alexa page with more detailed information about the source.
A9.com also records users' search history -- highlighting search results they haven't yet seen with a "New tag. If users have previously seen and clicked through to a result, they'll see the date of their last visit to that site.
The second column of A9's results, "Book Results," returns Amazon.com matches -- including hits from within pages of books indexed on the e-tailer's site (a feature dubbed "Search Inside the Book" by Amazon.)
A third column of results displays a user's search history. Users who do not log in, or visit A9.com's cookie-free subsite, generic.a9.com, do not have access to the search or visited sites history.
While A9.com spokespeople are reluctant to discuss what additional features the search site might offer, it's easy to imagine some logical additions.
For instance, one of the hallmarks of the Amazon.com shopping experience is the site's ability to remember past purchases (or viewed items) and to make recommendations accordingly. It would seem likely, then, that A9.com might tap into a user's past purchasing history to deliver more targeted results.
Just as likely, there's no reason why A9.com can't also highlight non-book results from Amazon.
It's more difficult to see how other aspects of A9.com could tie directly into e-commerce or marketing initiatives. For one thing, the A9 Toolbar also incorporates the A9 Diary, which enables users to enter notes about the site they're visiting. Those notes can be retrieved by users later, and like site or searching history, the feature is disabled when users are not logged in.
At this juncture, A9.com's impact on the search and marketing space is unclear. So far, we're seeing only tantalizing glimpses of what the search site could bring to bear: most notably, a tie-in with Amazon.com's retail offerings and its user surfing and purchasing data.
Consequently, e-tailers and marketers can attempt to leverage A9 by paying attention to their Alexa rankings. Until A9.com adds more features or provides more information clarifying its search algorithm, however, there's little more that marketers can do, at present -- besides staying tuned.
Christopher Saunders is managing editor of eCommerce-Guide.com.
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