Germany - Deutschland: SEARCH ENGINES Part 4

17 search engines

[rencke]

Continued from here [webmasterworld.com]

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Germany - Deutschland. Search engines.
German directories are found here [webmasterworld.com].
Fact sheet [odci.gov]
Domain(s): de
Online population: 20,1 million (1Q/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. Update reported to be very fast.

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: Onle one page 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: ? 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.

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

Columbus finder discontinued.

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: ?

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".

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.

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.

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: Kwd on ALT-tags. Kwd location: High preferred. First three results from own directory, following 5-6 from DirectHit, rest from spidered index, a change to Fast is expected, but not implemented per Dec 1, 2000.

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. [e-mail]

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 May 14, 2001

Edited by: rencke

[heini]

Dear learned friends (term borrowed from rencke)! What is to say about AV Germany? They drive me crazy!
Thanks to this forum and hard work I have gained good positions for major KW in google as well as in fast/lycos (though lycos.de still does not show the new fast results!) and even more absolute top postions for minor KW. But AV? Buried!
Now I understand from the AV Forum that itīs all about theming, and well, when looking at Brettīs groundbreaking article on theming itīs clear, that the site Iīm talking about is not exactly what AV loves, but it should be pretty much on the way.
And AV.de does not crawl deep. In fact it does not pick up any pages that I do not submit. It does not show most of the links to this site.
I really would appreciate some thoughts on how to improve on AV. What is the route to take?
Thanks!

[heini]

execute.hfg-karlsruhe.de
What is it?
Acts like a spider, been all over my sites.

[oLeon]

I noticed that the submission to Lycos.de has been changed. Normally it was the same checking-back as at Lycos.com ("your site has been successfully spidered") but now you only got a german massage, that the page would be picked up into the index.
Does it mean, that itīs not necessary to submit to Lycos.de anymore because they pass it to FAST?

[heini]

Hello oLeon
Good to see you back
about lycos submit: there is a discussion about the lycos submit here [webmasterworld.com]. No answers so far. Lycos has itīs own spider, anyhow. The whole lycos thing is complicated right now: nobody seems to know how much databases they have, when the lycos.de/co.uk/fr are updated, if itīs better to submit to lycos.de directly...
some mysteries to be unrevealed!

[oLeon]

Iīve never been gone ;-)

Strange is that we got a lot of visits from the lycos-spider end of last month, but the pages didnīt appear in the index (yet?).
We should remember that lycos former blended its results from DirectHit, its own directory and its index. Why should it end with that?

[heini]

Itīs been a somewhat quit place here in the german forum lately, apart from this heini person constantly asking stupid questions :)

-Lycos: What puzzles me is that
a) lycos.de still does not show the updated db from FAST. Lycos.com does so for a while.
b) when performing a nonrestricted, whole internet search on lycos.de, you do not get the same results as in lycos.com

About submitting to lycos.de: You recommend still to submit to them directly?

[rencke]

>execute.hfg-karlsruhe.de

Have you entered this as an url in a browser and checked? Snooping around there is kind of interesting. Can't figure it out, but perhaps you have attracted the attention of the people behind the F1 directory?

[heini]

>Have you entered this as an url
Yes but couldnīt figure it out either. The visits anyhow have been going on for months now, always very short but very often and all over the site. Iīm not very experienced in logfile analysis, but to me it looks very much like spider crawls, and thorough ones too. Will investigate further.

[heini]

acoon.de offers top positions for KWs, starts with 25 Euro (whereīs that euro sign on my keyboard???)
Iīm not sure if paid listings have already appeared, if so they are not marked in any way.

[rencke]

That's interesting. Any more details or an url to the page containing the offer?

>whereīs that euro sign on my keyboard

Wondered the same myself. Microsoft is supposed to have a patch that will place it as Shift+4 and I downloaded that once, but it doesn't seem to be part of the Win98 distribution. Anyone???

[heini]

info for the acoon offer to be found here [acoon.de]: "Advanced-Website-Marketing: Opportunity to buy one of the 4 top positions on the serps to single searchterms. Of course only sites with relevant content might apply... prices starting at 25 Euros.." (shortened translation).
Managing Company is TripleDoubleU GmbH [tripledoubleu.de].

[oLeon]

Acoon - very interesting!
The first SE which try to sell positions within the normal results without bidding.

Regarding Altavista.de - I am sure the ranking is the theme-thing, and it has a weight that is higher I could believe. Normally you get your listings with an AND - but thatīs not right, because I did some searches and figured out: by typing two words (no phrase), AV.de doesnīt seem to sort the results first with an AND (all words must appear) and then with an OR (one of hte words). Is there a word which is related to a theme first these pages occur, they donīt have to have both words in the document.
Is there anybody who can verify this?

Lycos.de = yes, still strange, and the same results as I mentioned in another thread: type in "notabene" (hello, rumbas...) and youīll see that www.notabene.net occur twice.

[heini]

oLeon
concerning AV.de: Do they spider at all? Iīve had some visits of av spiders recently, but I believe itīs from AV.com.
About ranking: Iīm not sure I understand what you were saying about themes. My problem is that Iīm buried for all KWs as well as for phrases. Even for a phrase that got me #1 in google.com!
I will anyhow over the next few days submit all the pages not indexed yet to AV. And I will submit pages with ext. links to my site.
See what happens.

[oLeon]

hi heini - maybe I should say this in german??

last spider-visit from av.de = 3rd of april

once more:
theming seems to have a higher weight. By typing in two words, AV says first the results with both words in the document/text appear in the listings and then pages with only one of them.
But I`d assume that the theme-thing has got a higher weight. There appear pages with only one of the searched words before others with both in it. So Iīd guess that these pages/sites that appear before has got a theme-indexing which gives them a higher relevance than the two words.

[heini]

oLeon
thank you, got it. So basically you are saying theme-indexed pages are ranking better than others, even if thy do not contain the searchterm exactly. Yep.
If this is really true, I will have to go back and study this theme thing again from the very beginnings.
The results given for most searches in AV.de anyhow are of poor value. As a user I would never go to AV.de. The results are often very off topic plus they are often quite outdated. Plus they seemingly accept spamming per metarefresh. Iīd prefer google and FAST anytime, even spammers paradies Fireball brings better results.

[oLeon]

Yes, indeed, youīre right! But AV has got a brand-name even in Germany, though they didnīt do any advertising to become more popular. People know them, and thatīs why we have to choose this SE, too. (unfortunately)

[oLeon]

regarding AV.de:
try this search [search.de.altavista.com], one word and one phrase, without a AND/+, and look what happens.
The third result is the best example of that what I mentioned before (theming). There follow a lot of results, which donīt contain both searchterms.

And try this search [search.de.altavista.com]. First now you got the results you expected already in the search above.

[heini]

I see. The results are mostly okay, anyhow.
So for this search it would be important to have a themed site for the first of the two searchterms. Iīm going to study the top-sites.
oLeon, how important do you think is AV.de in germany: do they generate traffic like, say, Lycos or Fireball?
Iīm wondering if I should change the whole structure of my sites in order to please them.
Thanks!

[heini]

Slow death or preparation for a restart -
infoseekīs webcatalogue is down. 404s for almost every part of the catalogue and the link to "help" produces another 404.
Itīs unbelievable that t-online should have this desastrous SE as an integral part of their portal for long while on the other hand investing big money to stay on top of the german portal scene. Either they will have to change horses or the group holding infoseek.de will have to do something about their machine very soon.

[heini]

So, since itīs the week of the europeans forum I have tried to come up with some new info. What concerns me at the moment is to get a grip on the usage of SEs in Germany.
For example Iīd really like to know how important AV.de is. Another thing is Web.de: the quite impressive figures given above I doubt, since I have some very good listings there but only marginal traffic coming, nothing like fireball, lycos or google
So I dug deep - and found near to nothing.
Nevertheless I decided to post my findings.

(Numbers from 12. Juli 2000, given in %, Source: webhit.de):
Yahoo 22,9
Lycos 9,4
Infoseek 8,9
fireball.de 7,5
Altavista 6,9
web.de 6,6
Google 6,0
altavista.com 5,3
MSN Web-Suche 4,6
Meta.Ger 4,2
Dino 3,0
Excite 2,2
Source [focus.de]
-------------------------------------
Some figures, which fit in quite well with the numbers given above:

FIREBALL: Visits 01/01 - 03/01
30.478.823 ¦ 25.166.180 ¦ 26.337.554

Infoseek: Visits 01/01 - 03/01
22.577.382 ¦ 21.037.664 ¦ 23.032.410
Source [pz-online.de]
-----------------------------------------
Somebody here (donīt remember who or where) just said, that SEs like to brag about their stats, but I have just the oppsite impression. Iīm pretty sure though, that this just me and more experienced people know all the figures and where to get them...

[rencke]

Congratulations heini on your new status as Senior Member. That star sure looks good on your shoulder. Now you can join the "Halo lobby". We are lobbying for one more star every 200 posts and a halo over your head when you pass 1000.

I checked the Webhit.de site and as far as I understand, the figures are derived from an aggregate of the counters that their customers voluntarily put on their pages. That method introduces a bias of unknown size and type, i.e. do these sites differ from other sites in some way and if so, how? An example: People who install counters on their pages, might have cheaper services without log statistics, compared to sites with more expensive type service with advanced log statistics. Hence their need for counters. Do these two types of sites differ from one another in the traffic they receive from search engines?

Measuring web use from the server end is a lot less expensive than doing it from the consumer end with the help of randomly chosen (and paid) panels, like Jupiter MMXI and Nielsen/NetRatings do. But is it equally reliable?

[Rumbas]

T-Online lets Infoseek go. Sells 25% stake.HERE [handelsblatt.com]

Whatīs the latest buzz about new search provider at T-Online?

Google..? FAST?

[heini]

Oops, I really feel old now that Iīm a senior - are you going to give me a pension...?
About Webhit.de: You are absolutely right not to trust their methods. What you see on their site is laughable. The figures I mentioned anyway are derived from focus.de, a very big and, well, respected newsmagazin. I found their online-info often quite useful.
The ratings currently on webhit.de do not include major portals / SEs anyhow. So I donīt have any idea in which way focus retrieved the data from webhit and what method webhit has used to measure those. Neither of those SEs will have a webhits counter on their site.
Anyhow, Iīve done some more digging. Came across MMXI, which then I remembered beeing mentioned by you, rencke. Iīm sure they as well as Nielsen have all the relevant data, but I just donīt have someone to pay for it.
Another problem with both Nielsen and MMXI is, that they are measuring traffic, sitereach etc for the portals, so that for example aol.de ranks very high. But that does not mean that all aol members use their searchbox. Same with yahoo: how many of their visitors use the directory, and how many use the websearch?
Or take Fireball: it never appears in the top ten in MMXI, but of course it belongs to the top five of german SEs.

Web.de: Well, they do brag! They have to, since they are a AG:
3.360 Mio unique Visitors
450 Mio Pageviews / month
Thatīs impressive, but as Web.de states: itīs the services and the content of the portal that does the trick rather than the websearch.
Searchenginwatch [searchenginewatch.com] has provided a list of most poular german SEs. The data is derived from MMXI anyhow thus reflecting the above mentioned problems:
MMXI Europe ratings
Germany / Deutschland
August 2000 - Home Users
Site Reach
T-Online (Infoseek) 60.9%
Yahoo 37.4%
AOL 32.8%
MSN 30.7%
Lycos 30.6%
Web.de (AltaVista) 19.7%

[heini]

rumbas
there is a thread [webmasterworld.com] on this.

[Rumbas]

DOH!

Something told me I'd read it before.
;)

[oLeon]

Did anybody notice that excite.de had an update?

I found new referrer from april, 27th - really! No joke!

[heini]

At last: updated results in lycos.de!
Canīt believe it!
Havenīt been watching it for the last few days - did anybody notice this before?

[oLeon]

hmmm, heini,
I donīt see this update.
Could you please post a link of a search or something like that so I can see this, too.

[heini]

hello oLeon
try this [lycos.de]. Definitely new pages there.