EUROPE: The search engines you cannot do without #1

The first quarterly report on European search engines.

[rencke]

European engines and directories that you cannot do without #1

Only 3 months have passed since the start of the "Grand European Plan" [webmasterworld.com] but a large amount of information on European search engines and directories has already been amassed, even at this early stage. So I thought it was about time for the first of a series of quarterly reports, to complement the Overview of Europe [webmasterworld.com], which contains useful figures and statistics.

One thing that can be said even now, is that the often repeated assertion that 90% of the world's search traffic goes through 8 to 10 leading engines is wrong to the point of being ridiculous. The pattern in Europe is clear. In most countries one or two leading engines have as much traffic as all others put together. These are typically purely local engines, well entrenched and oftentimes owned by the country's leading ISP - which is usually the same as the country's leading phone company (or phone monopoly in the case non-EU nations).

The big American international search engines are usually found somewhere below the top, but because of their presence in many countries, they can show impressive reach on a European scale. There is however no such thing as a European market. Do not believe people who tell you otherwise. There are 40 different national markets in Europe, so reaching their populations can generally not be achieved through international engines at this time. That can only be done locally. It is important to remember that only 28% of all Europeans and 32% of the surfers understand English at all. Communicating with them in their own language is therefore a must.

Here are the search engines and directories that you cannot do without if you want to reach the Europeans. The links point to the discussion thread for each, which contain more details:

Austria [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Belarus [webmasterworld.com]
SE: All.by
DIR: Akavita

Belgium [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Bosnia-Herzegovina [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Bulgaria [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Eurosoft
DIR: Dir.bg (62% of market)

Croatia [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Cross
DIR:WWW.HR

Czech Republic [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Cyprus [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Arachne!
DIR: Insufficient data

Denmark [webmasterworld.com]
SE: MSN, Kvasir (Fast)
DIR: Jubii (50% of market) Domain and language required.

Estonia [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Finland [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Sonera, Jippii
DIR: Sonera

France [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Voila Language required.
DIR: Yahoo France

Germany
SE: [webmasterworld.com] Infoseek, Lycos, AltaVista. Language required.
DIR: [webmasterworld.com] Web.de, Yahoo Deutschland Language required.

Greece [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Robby
DIR: In.gr

Hungary [webmasterworld.com]
SE: AltaVizsla
DIR: AltaVizsla

Iceland [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Ireland [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Doras.ie
DIR: ?

Italy [webmasterworld.com]
SE: MSN Italia, Lycos Italia
DIR: Virgilio. Language required.

Latvia [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Lithuania [webmasterworld.com]
SE: KTU
DIR: Lithuania Online

Luxemburg [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Malta [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Netherlands [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Ilse. Language and Dutch ownership required.
DIR: Pagina. Language required.

Norway [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Kvasir (Fast)
DIR: No data

Poland [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Onet (60% of market) Language and domain required.
DIR: Wirtualna Polska Language required.

Portugal [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Romania [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Edison
DIR: Insufficient data

Russia [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Yandex (37% of market) Language required.
DIR: Rambler, TopList (each w 15-16% of market.)

Slovakia [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Slovenia [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Slovista
DIR: Eon, Mat'Kurja, SloWWWenia

Spain [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Sweden [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Altavista, MSN, Evreka
DIR: Yahoo Sverige

Switzerland [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

Turkey [webmasterworld.com]
SE: Evreka (?)
DIR: TurkNet (?)

Ukraine [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

United Kingdom [webmasterworld.com]
SE: MSN UK, Freeserve, AOL, Virgin.net
DIR: Yahoo UK, The UK Directory

Yugoslavia [webmasterworld.com]
Insufficient data

A big THANK YOU to all those who have contributed to this forum. Keep it coming! We have big holes in our knowledge about half of Europe's countries and lots of details that need to be filled in for the rest. This project will take at least another year, before we can switch to updating mode. The next quarterly report will be published during the second half of April 2001.

Do you want to add to this report or feel that it should be changed? Post right here or in the discussion for the country concerned.

Jan

Edited by: rencke

[msgraph]

When I get listed in Altavista's worldwide database, I pull in some good traffic out of...

www.bluewin.ch
Switzerland

I don't know how popular it is over there but the numbers are pretty good.

[msgraph]

Here is one you can fit in temporarily into Portugal. Again I don't know how popular this one is but when I get listed well in Google I do get some traffic from here. They seem to use their database for worldwide searches.

[mundial.sapo.pt...]
Portugal

[JonB]

Here are slovenian:

Most important are:

DIR: Eon,Mat'Kurja,SloWWWenia
SE: slovista

Less important SE and DIRs:
Tobi
Maxi
Pajek.Net
Povezave.com

I am doing research on Slovenian SE right now and will report in Slovenian SE "forum".But it is going slow since i dont have much time :)

[oldtimer]

In the Uk the majority of searches are through the portals..

Apart from MSN UK (using LookSmart/Inktomi) and Yahoo UK (using Google)

Freeserve consider themselves the UK #1 portal and they now glean their results mainly from GoTo
They also have a prominent link to UK Plus, one of the UK’s earliest directories (which is also linked from MSN uk)

AOL uk still uses Inktomi
Virgin.net uses Google

Lifestyle has also been around about 6 years and is very useful for producing links. Used by a number of search engines including AOL UK, Excite UK and Freeserve - and many of the smaller ones.

The UK Directory is now large enough for them to bring out a monthly printed edition on sale in most main newsagents. They are for co.uk sites only.

[rencke]

Msgraph: Thanks for your input. I have updated the thread for Switzerland with the info about Bluewin using AV and moved SAPO from directory to search engine in the Portugal discussion, adding your info about Google. Although we have no clue as yet if these engines are "the ones you cannot do without", I would think that they must be pretty substantial locally - neither AV nor Google licenses come free with the Corn Flakes.

JonB: I have updated the info on Slovenia both here and in the Slovenia thread, adding the Slovista search engine and the Eon directory. Looking forward to hearing more about your country. Thanks.

Oldtimer: Thanks for the info on the UK, which I have used to update the first post above. You wouldn't happen to have the same for Ireland by any chance?

[skirril]

Ok, here's the thing for switzerland:

www.lycos.ch is just a localised version of lycos germany, as far as I can judge.

www.search11.ch
www.search.ch
www.bluewin.ch
are swiss portal sites, personally I get the equal number of referrals from both search.ch and bluewin.ch

Bluewin uses Altavista techology, it seems.

[go.sunrise.ch...]
german version of a portal site powered by looksmart it seems.

[oLeon]

I disagree with you, rencke, about Germany.

You cannot work with * in Germany:
Infoseek (all right, though itīs almost dead since two month - but itīs very important due to its searchfunction on t-online)
Lycos (only one update in 2000!)
Altavista (very important, backup-engine of web.de)
Yahoo.de (still one of the biggest)
Web.de
Fireball (still growing)

[Horasz]

rencke,

Sorry, but Index.hu not a directory.

The biggest directory in Hungary is:
[altavizsla.origo.hu...]

[rencke]

oLeon: Hmmmm.... (think, think, think) The title of this thread is "Search engines that you cannot do without, so I just took the top engine(s) trafficwise for each country where we have some idea about volumes.

In the Germany search engine thread, we have:
Infoseek at T-online 30,8 mill page views/month
Lycos Deutschland 36,6
Excite Deutschland 15
Fireball 10,8

and in the directories thread:
Web.de 38,5
Yahoo Deutschland 30,5

so I figure that the two first of each are indispensable in a web strategy for Germany. Guess I should add Yahoo Deutschland, huh? And AV, because of their relation to Web.de. Consider it done.

Horasz: I guess index.hu is a portal, but it does have a small search engine on board as well as an even smaller directory "katalóg", where the software category was actually empty, when I looked. Changing the post above and will update the Hungary discussion with your info.

skirril: Thanks. Will copy your post into the Switzerland discussion and update the main entry there as appropriate. Do you know anything else about these engines?

Edited by: rencke

[JonB]

Rencke, this is excellent SE directory- many european SE that are missin in your list starting with Austria and so on :)

[searchenginecolossus.com...]

[rencke]

If you check the Austria [webmasterworld.com] discussion thread, I think you will find the same engines as in SearchEngineColossus. The only ones that I left out were smaller regional and/or specialized search engines and directories.

Since then, an even bigger list has been found here at Alba36 [db.alba36.com] featuring 33 entries for Austria. We haven't had much activity in the Austrian discussion, so if you could help identify additional general nationwide SE:s and DIR:s in that country, I think everybody here would be very happy.

[JonB]

Jan, i am not that familiar with austrian Se - i posted this links because i saw that FIRSt post,your post, didnt have any data for austria(insufficient).
But i will update soon in Slovenia Se. :)

[oldtimer]

Re: Ireland

All I can find out is that there is now an Alta Vista Ireland.

For the Irish search engines the biggest is Doras.ie That and all the others seem to be exclusively for about-Ireland or Irish (.ie) sites

[rencke]

Thanks, oldtimer. Updated the report with Doras. Do any of the engines listed by Alba36 [db.alba36.com] ring a bell? Or are they all Irish versions of UK engines?

[pobeirne]

A list of Irish search engines is at :
[purplepages.ie...]

Click on "Irish" on the far right to get the list of non-regional-specific ones.

[oLeon]

<<The title of this thread is "Search engines that you cannot do without, so I just took the top engine(s) trafficwise for each country where we have some idea about volumes>>

Yes,I know, rencke, thatīs the reason why I wrote my boring post.
What do you do when you submit to big SEs which donīt update their indexes (Lycos, Excite)?
What does it help? Nothing.
So I think recommending a SE which would pick up your submitted pages is much more useful than a SE which has got many pageimpressions but an old index due to its missing updates.
Thatīs why I recommend Fireball: unique visitors in december about 16 Mio and your page is in their index within two days.

[rencke]

I see your point. Checked out several of the European Lycos sites and was amazed to see that they still draw results from different sources HotBot=Inktomi in Germany, Direct Hit or Fast elsewhere. I don't get this. Is Inktomi not updating? I don't think I have seen that in the Inktomi forum. (Could your observations have anything to do with their new pay for spidering scheme?)

And what about Fast. It was my understanding that Lycos was going to switch to Fast worldwide. Could it be that they have old contracts that have to expire first? The principal owner of Lycos is Bertelsmann in Germany. Could you put your ear to the ground oLeon and tell us what you hear?

As to Excite, I agree with you. They are certainly dispensable in a German strategy if they don't update.

[oLeon]

you are right, rencke, lycos.de has switched to fast - sometimes...;-) itīs not constant, and I really donīt know what theyīll do in the nearly future: why can you submit to their own add-page, when they get their results from fast?

infoseek, not inktomi...
infoseek.de is a bit dead, if you could be dead partially:
no new submits are possible since end of november, only respidering of pages that are already in the index happens.

[rencke]

Pobeirne: Sorry, I missed your post. Do you know which of the search engines on that list, that "you cannot do without" (if you want to reach the Irish)? I.e the two or three biggest? The two biggest directories would be nice too.

oLeon: >infoseek, not inktomi...

I don't follow. Inktomi powers HotBot, which powers Lycos Germany. Is that wrong?

>infoseek.de is a bit dead, if you could be dead partially: no new submits are possible since november

Found a page dated Dec 21 2000, but that could have been a respidering of course. And the Add Url page is up and running, but I didn't try it. What happens? Do you get a message saying how sorry they are when you submit?

However: Infoseek.de powers T-online, Germany's biggest portal. If a big place like T-online has a search engine aboard that does not accept new submissions and just respiders old sites now and then, would it not seem likely that T-online would be looking for something better? Surely, their customers would not accept anything but the best, so perhaps a shift in search technology is about to happen? What do you think?

[msgraph]

>Lycos (only one update in 2000!)

They must have just made another update. Since yesterday I have just started to receive referrals from Lycos.de and www.leicos.de (Lycos with a different spelling). Some pretty good referrals actually. Even more than those from Lycos.com.

The results are not the same but I am listed in the same position under the same keyword. Lycos.com matches FAST's newer description while Lycos.de matches something else. So my guess is that they are using data from Lycos spiders maybe?

I'm also getting a few from Google.de but only a few :( Maybe the name isn't that well known there yet.

[oLeon]

Hotbot, Lycos.de and Fireball are in the same network:
the Lycos-network

Hotbot got its results from Inktomi.
Lycos.de doesnīt.
That picture of Hotbot you can see on the lycos-page has to do with the network both are in.
(You also can see the logo of FAST...)

Yes, the results of Lycos are different now from former results, and I lost hundreds of pages, but I thought it was due to the switch to FAST. But I am not sure because the results are different in FAST. Could it be that Lycos only get now and then a update of the newest index of FAST? I really donīt know but I am researching this.

Infoseek does respidering, and thatīs why you see the date of december. But they donīt spider new submitted pages, without a message after submit, that they apologize blabla. Nothing at all.
Of course it could be that t-online donīt accept that anymore, but who knows what contract they have. I really wonder about why Infoseek.de is that slowly.

[rencke]

Congratulations oLeon! You just made post no. 1000 in the European Search Engines forum and have won the secret prize - a six-pack of Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Unless we meet somewhere before that, I will drop it off at your office next time I pass through Hamburg. (I kept the prize secret so that Mr Mackin of the PPC forum would not be able to accuse me of trying to bribe members. I have bets going backstairs that he would win, so I'll have to go out and buy a lot of beer now.)

>Could it be that Lycos only get now and then a update of the newest index of FAST? I really donīt know but I am researching this.

I think you are on the right track here. I have seen other engines using Fast, that present results different from Fast's own. The results from your research will be really interesting.

Thank you for clarifying this thing about Lycos and HotBot.

As to T-online I just read in a Swedish paper this morning, that they are not just Germany's biggest ISP, but in fact Europe's biggest. Germans are extremely quality conscious, so I'll bet you another six-pack that we'll see T-online switch to a new SE this year. Since Lycos has Fast onboard, my guess is Google.

Jan

[NFFC]

Hi oleon,

>Could it be that Lycos only get now and then a update of the newest index of FAST?

There are two Lycos's, Terra Lycos which is served by Fast [see here [webmasterworld.com]]and Lycos Europe which use there own dB. Looking at the UK dB it appears that they have had a mass clear out of pages which could be considered very similar to each other. Nothing seems to have changed algo wise, the same templates still rank well, just that there are fewer of them.

[oLeon]

Hurra!
Lass uns zusammen Bier trinken...

Thatīs nice - and just an accident.

<<so I'll bet you another six-pack that we'll see T-online switch to a new SE this year>>
rencke,
okay - I bet you, too: the owners of Infoseek.de are Axel-Springer Verlag (a big german publisher) and T-ONLINE !!! So, I donīt believe that they switch to another SE this year. (You can already buy that beer...;-) )

NFFC, right with Terra-Lycos and Lycos-Europe, but Lycos-Europe will also switch to FAST.
What about the FAST-logo at the bottom of the result-page? It seems that they switch from DirectHit to FAST-technology.

[rencke]

Springer and T-online, eh? But Infoseek has to be chickenfeed to these people. I think they are considering even now, whether to invest really big money to give Infoseek more and better technology or to minimize their losses and get a license (much cheaper) for something brand new and nice. T-online is where the money comes in, you know. Perhaps the decision has already been taken. That could be why Infoseek is not accepting new submissions. Their index is full, lots of new hardware will be needed, but the owners won't cough up the cash needed. Methinks you and I will be drinking a lot of beer this year, my friend.

[oLeon]

Good point, rencke!
I really donīt consider that point of losses...in the market of SEs is all possible even the unthinkable due to the money that flows.

[skirril]

rencke:
www.infoseek.ch -> www.infoseek.de

other than that:
bluewin.ch and search.ch seem to have more or less the same part of the market. Blu(e)win is a service of Swisscom, and most ppl who use swisscom as a dialup use bluewin. What used to be sear.ch is now bluewin.

search11 has invested in a large marketing campaign, but I have not seen it (in terms of referrers) so far.

[wisser]

Hi rencke,
Altavista.de no longer uses Web.de. They use Looksmart now. The BT Looksmart people started a German database. Bad news, yes it requires payment like all Lokksmart indexes.

[rencke]

Oh God! Don't you have any GOOD news? ;)