The Art of SEO

Country-Specific Search Engines

At this stage, search is truly global in its reach. Google is the dominant search engine in many countries, but not all of them. How you optimize your website depends heavily on the target market for that site, and the search engine(s) that is (are) the most important in that market.

According to comScore, Google is receiving 62% of all searches performed worldwide. In addition, Google is the market share leader in every regional market. Most notable, though, is the Asia Pacific region, where Google holds a relatively narrow 36.1% to 26.8% edge over Baidu, the largest search engine in China. This is the only regional market in which Google has less than 60% market share, and it also happens to be the largest market for search in the world (in terms of total searches performed).

Here is some data on countries where other search engines are the major players:

China

Baidu News reported in February 2009 that Baidu had more than 73% market share in China in 2008 (http://baidu-news.blogspot.com/2009/02/baidus-market-share-at-732-domestic.html).

Russia

According to figures announced by Yandex, the company’s market share in Russia comprises about 50% of all searches (http://www.searchengineworld.com/seo/3459183.htm).

South Korea

Naver was estimated by the International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/04/business/naver.php) to have about 77% market share in South Korea in mid-2007.

Czech Republic

The StartupMeme Technology blog reported that Seznam ...