May 24, 2011 14:31 GMT  ·  By

While others have touted the advantages of vertical search engines, optimized for a very specialized type of search, Google has always tried to do everything on the same page. That is changing somewhat, but it's not giving up on its approach, the latest example and perhaps the most telling, is a new, experimental flights search OneBox.

Spotted by SEO Gadget, Google is now serving a dedicated OneBox for flight related searches. This doesn't show up for everyone, so it's yet another feature Google is experimenting with in the wild.

Related searches, even using more generic terms, will display the new OneBox which lists flights to the location the user was searching for.

Normally, the flight data OneBox displays a list of websites where this type of information can be found. Now though, Google provides a list of actual flights inside the search results.

If you're not very specific in your search, this adds up to quite a lot of flights. Each entry lists the departure location, duration of the flight and airlines servicing the route.

By default, just three flights are listed, but clicking on the small plus button reveals quite a deal more. In fact, if there are a lot of flights, the list will push regular search results way down, sometimes below the fold.

Of course, since the feature is still experimental, this may be tweaked and changed before Google decides to roll it out to everyone.

While there's no way of knowing for sure, there's a good chance that the new feature is linked to the much talked about ITA acquisition, approved just last month after nine months in limbo.

Google moved to acquire ITA, a flight data and related services provider, last year, but regulators in the US investigated whether the deal would be bad for competition and finally gave their approval in April.