Search Your International Search Engines

The US search market may be dominated by Google, with Yahoo! taking a chunk as well, but this isn’t always the case in other areas of the world. Google has presence in many countries, but these countries might also have their own search brands that are just as well known or even more preferred, especially in Asian markets (like Baidu in China). Here are some tips to get started on finding those other search engines.

It may be a little tricky finding good foreign search engines, especially if you’re unfamiliar with brands or your market, or are searching in English for non-English ones. One way to find them is to search for your country and “search engine.” For example, I searched for “France search engine” and came up with several links to sites that list many French search engines. I found links to major ones like Google.fr, Yahoo! France, and Voila, and smaller ones like Kagibi and Cliweb. But I also found special regional engines like Breizhoo (for Britany) and E-Corse for Corsica. Not every search engine I found for France may be popular or up to date, and my basic search didn’t even immediately pull up big names like Orange, a telecom company with search on its homepage. It took some digging around and some creative variations on the search terms.

You can also try going to a foreign search engine you find and use the foreign term for search engine, like Suchmachine in German or motor de busquéda in Spanish. Typing Suchmachine into Yahoo! Germany, I found MetaGer, Klug Suchen, and Suchen.com (in addition to Google.de). If you know the proper term to search under, this is another good way to find your foreign search engines.

Another way of finding search engines is to look at the international traffic coming your way. If your site already has international visitors, your website analytics can tell you which search engines they used to find your site. Take a peek at your visitor stats to see where they’re coming from (and also what terms they’re using). Consider asking your customers what sites they like to use as well.

To be sure you’ve found an engine that’s worth the time and effort to rank well in, you’ll also want to dig up some market research on international search habits. To get your international SEO program going, you might find yourself putting in extra time and effort, but in the end it’s worth it!