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Germany - Deutschland. Search engines.
German directories are found here [webmasterworld.com].
Fact sheet [odci.gov]
Domain(s): de
Online population: 30 million (2Q/2001)
Native language(s): German
Understanding of English: Very high
Hosts in domain: 2,2 million (April 2001)
Pages in language: 37,5 million (April 2001, all domains)
Pages in domain: 37,6 million (April 2001, all languages)
Local presence required for domain registration: Yes
Multiple domains allowed: Yes
Professional help: See bottom of page
Known general search engines:
Abacho [abacho.com]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: ? Meta description used in search replies: No, only title
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: Some Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: Yes Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: Keyword density is important. Express inclusion for a small fee.
Abadoor [abadoor.com]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: No Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: ? Meta description used in search replies: yes
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: Yes Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: Yes Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: Only few pages per domain, will not spider others. Similar to directory. Other: Max url length: 42 characters. Maximum 12 pages per domain.
Acoon [acoon.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: No Local domain(s) only: NO Search technology: Own Meta description used in search replies: Yes
Things that help ranking: Local language: yes Local domain: No Keyword in URL: Yes Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: Yes Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: No Other: Keyword density is the most important factor. Flooding and repetition observed to be accepted.
Altavista Deutschland [de.altavista.com]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: No Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: AltaVista
Meta description used in search replies: YesThings that help ranking: Local language: Yes Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: Yes Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: Yes Keyword in header: Yes Keyword in 1st paragraph: Yes Other: Link popularity. Theme based indexing. Date: Older better.
Submissions now go to Main DB, results get pulled from there
AOL [aol.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: 3,9 mill page views/month Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: ?
Meta description used in search replies: ?Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ?
Belissima - see Abacho
Crawler.de [crawler.de] see Abacho
Excite [excite.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: 15 mill page views/month Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: ? Meta description used in search replies: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ? Nearly gone, future unclear
Fireball [fireball.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: 10,8 mill pageviews/month (research)/30 mill (own figures) Local language(s) required: Yes Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: Altavista
Meta description used in search replies: Yes Things that help ranking: Local language: Mandatory Local domain: No Keyword in URL: Yes, big. Keyword in title: Yes, boost if title=url. Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: No Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: No Other: Fireball reads additional meta tags indicating a.o. language, audience and subject. Info in help pages. Likes high keyword density and newer pages before older. Frequent submssion important. Links and link text important. Will index framed pages even if noframes tag i missing. Does not give preference to de-domain, ch and at work just as well. Submitted pages in index within 48 hours. "Spammers paradise".
Changes to be expected, linkpopularity will be part of the algo
Google Germany [google.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: Google Meta description used in search replies: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: German language front end for Google. Three search options: International (default), German language pages and Germany only.
In top3 for number of searches conducted, still rising
Infoseek [infoseek.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: Germany's #1 search engine with 30.8 mill page views/month + traffic from T-online Local language(s) required: Yes Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: ? Meta description used in search replies: Yes, and keywords too.
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: Yes Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Not much Keyword in meta keywords: yes Keyword in header: yes Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: Also on main page of T-online, Germany's leading portal with 47,6 mill page visits/month. New look and functionality May 14. Has resumed indexing new pages.
Attention! Closing down on end of October
Lotse - see Speedfind
Nathan [nathan.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: ? Meta description used in search replies: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ?
Lycos Deutschland [lycos.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: 36,6 mill page views/month Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: Direct Hit + Fast Meta description used in search replies: No
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: no Keyword in URL: Yes Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: No Keyword in meta keywords: No Keyword in header: Yes Keyword in 1st paragraph: Yes Other: Uses Fast, ranking similar. Top5 results will be on sale via Espotting
MSN [msn.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: 3,4 million page views/month Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: Inktomi Meta description used in search replies: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ?
Speedfind [speedfind.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: No Local domain(s) only: No Search technology: Own Meta description used in search replies: Yes, one line description, one line keywords, several line text from page.
Things that help ranking: Local language: Yes Local domain: Yes Keyword in URL: No Keyword in title: Yes Keyword in description: Yes Keyword in meta keywords: Yes Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ?
Tigersuche [tigersuche.de]
Language interface: German Traffic volume: ? Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: Oen spidered index supplemented by secondary results from Altavista, Fast, Fireball and Google. Meta description used in search replies: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Keyword in meta keywords: ? Keyword in header: ? Keyword in 1st paragraph: ? Other: ?
Local people who can help with translations and advise:
Ulrich Wisser, luna-park GmBH. Traffic analyses, SEO and translations into German. u.wisser@luna-park.de This area will be updated with e-mail and/or web addresses to translators and SEO specialists, who have posted a reply in this discussion. Please state your name, web and/or e-mail address, languages to/from and what you can help out with. Prices and promotional stuff will be edited out.
The easy way to post a reply: Copy from above, click button, paste and change.
Last updated September 28, 2001
(edited by: heini at 10:04 am (gmt) on Sep. 28, 2001
I really wonder how much value there is in directory submissions nowadays
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum18/398.htm [webmasterworld.com]
[webmasterworld.com...]
Shorter answer: Google.
Longer answer: Not much happening apart from Google.de. Oh yeah: Google.com. Google.at. Google.ch. Yahoogle. Google on web.de.
Make sure you have Fast covered, comes in via Lycos and T-online. Both sites with great reach, especiall t-online, still #1 web property in Germany, but the Fast/Overture driven search is implemented so extremely poor it does generate only small traffic.
MSN.de. For some areas rewarding.
AV brings some. Fireball is dying slowly (I know, I buried them before and they came back...)
On the Searchengine-strategies in Munich two weeks ago a representative from Fireball explained that this SE īd be there in the future, too.
I think it īd be nice, when a real german SE is still available (besides Google and FAST, the big SE-player in the world).
Some informations about the SE in Germany:
Excite - still alive but with FAST results (so useless again... - the only interesting feature is a preview-window, the same as you can see on Fireball since eastern this year)
Acoon - still alive, but useless (with strange results: always on the 2nd or 3rd place a link to the german ebay, without showing, that itīs an advertisting link - have a look: here, the search was "trallalla" [acoon.de])
Fireball - you can see, that the relevance is down: on one page, FB shows the top-100 searches from the day before here [fireball.de] - round about 450,000, not half of that what it has been a year ago
Speedfind - dead!