Google to launch vertical search service for health.

The Register reports that Google is to launch a separate site for health related issues, including illnesses, symptoms, medicine and traditional and alternative treatments .

According to the Register the service may end up looking like Google’s Finance portal which adds news headlines and market data to tailored search results.

ZDNet, however, argues that the service will be more like an enhanced search option.

Google will ad new more targeted search queries to your search engine result list, helping you find what you are looking for. Hence there will be no Google Health portal or home page, only additional search results.

Regardless of what the final version of Google Health will look like (we’ll find out later this week), it demonstrates Google’s commitment to vertical search, i.e. search tools focusing on particular topics or disciplines.

Services like Google News and Google Scholar prove that Google is able to deliver such facilities, with or without home pages packed with news and links. For a more narrow vertical Google search engine, see Google Apple Search.

See also: Google Health, what is it? (ZDNet), Google Health: Probably coming next week (USA Today), and Google Health To Cure The World? (Search Engine Watch)

UPDATE May 10: Google Health was launched as Google Co-op on Wednesday.