What is Universal Search?
Universal Search is the ability of a search engine to include images, videos, news, maps, books, rich snippets, knowledge panels, and other content types in the search results apart from the regular text-based 10 blue links.
For example, a Google search for yoga poses would retrieve results in multiple formats.
Universal search allows a search engine to deliver results that satisfy the searcher’s intent. At the same time, it makes it easier for the searcher to access the information they need.
Google introduced Universal Search in 2007. In the documentation, Google announced that Universal Search is intended to provide the searcher with multiple results types on a single search results page.