Forum Moderators: open
France
Fact sheet [odci.gov]
Domain(s): fr
Online population: 9,0 million (July 2000)
Native language(s): French
Understanding of English: Low
Hosts in domain: 983.450 (Jul 2000)
Pages in language: 6,9 million (Sep 2000, all domains)
Pages in domain: 2,9 million (Sep 2000, all languages)
Local presence required for domain registration: Yes
Multiple domains allowed: No
Professional help: See bottom of page
Known general search engines:
Altavista France [fr.altavista.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 French sites. 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: ?
Excite [excite.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 French sites. 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: ?
Franco Moteur [franco-moteur.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 French sites. 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: ?
Free.fr [free.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: France's 2nd biggest site. 2,3 mill unique visitors in Nov-00. Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: Fast 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: ?
Infoseek [france.infoseek.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France. 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 France [lycos.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France 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: ?
Multimania [multimania.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: 6th biggest site in France. 1,9 mill unique visitors in Nov-00 Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? Search technology: Ask Jeeves 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: ?
MSN France [msn.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: 10th biggest site in France. 1,3 mill unique visitors in Nov-00. 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: ?
NetScan [netscan.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France. 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: ?
Voila [voila.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: 9th biggest site in France. 1,4 mill visitors in Nov-00. Also serving Wanadoo.fr, France's #1 site with 3,4 mill visitors. 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: ?
Known general directories:
Chaloop [chaloop.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Ecila [ecila.nomade.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Francité [guide.francite.net]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Hachette [hachette.net]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Lokace [lokace.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Nomade.fr [nomade.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Sharelook [sharelook.fr]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Not among top 10 sites in France.[/ Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Spray - see Lycos
Yahoo France [fr.yahoo.com]
Language interface: French Traffic volume: Yahoo France is France's #4 site with 2,0 mill unique visitors in Nov-00 and Yahoo.com the 7th with 1,7 mill visitors. Local language(s) required: ? Local domain(s) only: ? No. of categories allowed per site: ? Search method: ?
Things that help ranking: Local language: ? Local domain: ? Keyword in URL: ? Keyword in title: ? Keyword in description: ? Other: ?
Local people who can help with translations and advise:
WebmasterWorld member Goblin does translations into French and Bulgarian. ostapbender@noos.fr 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.
Other translation services found at www.kevrenn.com
The easy way to post a reply: Copy from above, click button, paste and change.
Updated Jan 7, 2001
Edited by: rencke
One thing I have been wondering about is the relative size between the French search engines. I assume that Violá is the biggest, but how do the other ones rank relative to Voilá? And is it true that Voilá has begun to index sites not in French and not in France?
I'm working on indexing some sites for a web design company (i'm just a beginner, tough) so here's what i can tell you about Voilà:
As Voila is owned by France Télécom, yes, i guess it's the biggest.
And if not the biggest, they are the best - they index fast (a week seems to be a max), they index meta keywords, they are logical when indexing, just like if there were a human behind the spider.
They index foreign sites in other languages (as some of my sites are in english & with a .com domain) and don't seem to prefer .fr to other domains (i'm not sure. Let's say a french language site on .fr will be better quoted than an english language site with a .com).
About the others - here's a link (in french) where you can see how they rate:
[journaldunet.com...]
As i essentially use metatags in my sites (i'm learning the rest, but well - i just started:) here are the french SE which seem to like metatags & to be the fastest to react:
Voila (Wanadoo.fr which belongs too to France Telecom uses it too), Altavista France, and for the directories:Francite (http://www.francite.fr, nice site!!!), ctrouve (http://www.ctrouve.com),Nomade.fr,
See ya :)
If you are still a beginner, make sure to read these two classical discussions:
One size fits all SEO [webmasterworld.com] and
THOU shalt not [webmasterworld.com]
You can drop a flag on them to create a local bookmark in you "flags" file.
Could you explain one thing for me: At the bottom of the article on MMXI statistics it says "Top 10
des propriétaires" showing visitors by site owner. I could not identify the French ones like Groupe Vivendi and Proxad. Is there anything you can tell me about them?
About Proxad (http://proxad.com/)- they belong to ILIAD (http://www.iliad.fr), they own [free.fr...] Free.fr are kinda new (they appeared 6 months ago) and are huge too.
When i talk about huge sites, i mean for example the kind of sites that can make a 1 month advertising campaign at prime time on the major TV channels...
That's it :)
I hope that helps.
Write me again if you need anything else, or translations from french or from bulgarian.
Cant find out whether this has been covered but I am assuming it hasnt.
I have translated the default pages of our sites. I would now like to register a french domain. The site concerns travel to Africa.
1) What would be the most popular travel KW phrase that people would use? Ani ideas
2) What would be the chances of getting this site with an FR extension into the directories e.g Yahoo! France e.t.c conisdering only the default page has been translated.
Jan, thanks for al the hard work
Je suis desolée, mais je ne parle pas francais. (Sadly, I don't speak French) You'll need the help of a Frenchman for this. Another way might be to look into the directories for your area and note titles and descriptions. Or search Voila for "afrique" and analyze the first 30 search replies (assuming that French webmasters know the art of optimization, which may or may not be the case.)
>getting this site with an FR extension into the directories
If the French site contains only the single French page and the pages in English are linked to their current locations, I can't see why the directories would object. Perhaps we have French members reading this who know more.
Yohoo! Goblin, Sauer - anyone else....!
Off-topic. Pete: What is the Swahili word for Sweden?
About the .fr domain - u can't.
To obtain an .fr domain name u need to show the copy of a form called K-bis which proofs that the business concerned by the site is established in France.
"assuming that French webmasters know the art of optimization" ???
Of course we do not !
What would we do on this forum otherwise ???
Hi hi hi :)
Re: Pete's question. I think it will probably be quite easy to find a French registration company that agrees (against a fee) to stand as the official owner of the domain name.
Re: Translations. Do you translate from English into French and Bulgarian? If that is so, I can put you under "Local people" at the end of the main entry above.
Re: Bulgaria. Do you know anything about Bulgarian search engines [webmasterworld.com]? We have no information on them at all other than the few things I put together in October.
Yes, i translate into French and Bulgarian. You can put me wherever you want, i'll be happy to help - i'm just new to WMW & i have not check all yet.
I'll try to learn some more for Bulgarian search engines.
Thanks for the insight and recommendations.
Regarding swahili for sweden, will have to look into that one and get back to you.
Onya
Woz
They use Fast for the search results.
No, it's a lot more complicated than that, rencke. In France, domain names like thing.fr are *strictly* regulated. You will not obtain such a name unless you can prove that your company is indeed officially named "thing". There is no way around that - the document required is an official one obtained only from the French administration. So a registration company can by no means register a domain in the name of a client.
The alternative would be creating a thing.com.fr or thing.nom.fr name, for which regulations are less stringent. But then those domains don't have the same "visual impact".
-- Multimania is a huge portal build on the idea of a francophonic community.
If you make a search there, it will make a search on the Multimania community personnal pages --
Yes, I'd emphasize the word "personal" here - the far far majority of the multimania sites are family or personal home pages.
..my 2 centimes!..
This is the info I have - I'd love to know if there's another way around it...
There's no such thing in France. In fact, until recently, you couldn't register a thing.fr if the French nic considered "thing" to be a generic term. As I said, it's stringent. There are still a number of terms (regional names, among others) which will not be allocated.
Another example: you can't register, say, abc.fr if your company is called "a business company" unless the French admininstrative document relative to the creation of your co. specifically states that you go by "abc".
Also, entities of certain professions are limited to name.professions.fr - an accountant will be allocated thename.experts-comptables.fr (sic)
And, in reference to your earlier comment, rencke, you *have* to go through an ISP, which will then register the name with the AFNIC, French "non-profit" that has monopoly on dns in France, regardless of your domain name - you can't register one yourself.
-- The only way I can do it is to register a .tm.fr as we have a registered trademark in France. We have to provide a INPI document --
Right. The INPI is the "Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle" - the French admin that official registers trademarks. They're at www.inpi.fr if anyone's interested.
The alternative is to register thing.com.fr which requires no justifying documents at all, but the registering entity must be French or resident of France - in this case, Rencke's suggestion could work; a French isp could register it in their name.
Whew.
> thing.com.fr ... those domains don't have the same "visual impact".
So, name.fr is perceived to be first rate, while name.com.fr, name.tm.fr and name.nom.fr are viewed as second rate by people. Do you know if leading SE:s such as Voilá give preference to .fr over .com.fr and the others when ranking search replies?
An interesting point here is that it could be argued that these extremely strict rules create a competitive disadvantage to companies marketing in/to France alternatively that the recently relaxed rules in Sweden give an unfair competitive advantage to companies marketing in/to Sweden. In which case the whole thing might become a matter for the European Union Court, the moment someone lodges an official complaint.
Until 1999 we hade the same extremely strict rules as France, which led to 60% of all Swedish sites registering under .com or .nu and only 40% in .se Has there been a similar development in France?
Not that I have noticed. I guess it's an entirely subjective judgement.
-- An interesting point here is that it could be argued that these extremely strict rules create a competitive disadvantage to companies marketing in/to France alternatively --
Sorry, rencke, but I didn't understand this part of your post .. .
-- led to 60% of all Swedish sites registering under .com or .nu and only 40% in .se --
Yes, lots of domains under .com or .net - though very few under .nu (um, that literally translates to "naked" in French :-) or .tv or etc.
Louponne: If the rules for businesses vary between EU-member nations, it is generally speaking an advantage to some companies and a disadvantage to others. Such differences are contrary to the concept of the "EU inner market", and will probably be changed one way or the other. Either by France being asked to relax its rules or by other countries to be asked to tighten theirs.
As to 'nu', I guess I should have spent $25 to register "femmes.nu" three years ago when the address was still available, but I am not in the so called 'adult industry' so I passed on the chance. Probably quite valuable now. Pit, I could have been a rich man. The word means 'now' in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, so the domain is very popular up here.
1. &Wanadoo 3,144,157 (Voila onboard)
2. Yahoo 1,963,314
3. Liberty surf 1,845,230
4. Proxad 1,725,848
5. Lycos 1,657,074
6. Multimania 1,440,369
7. AOL 1,432,584
8. MSN 1,397,548
9. Vivendi 1,362,512
10 Microsoft 1,358,619
Known search engines and directories are in bold.
If anyone can help me urgently I would appreciate it.
Thanks
Neil
You have certainly found the right place for information regarding European Search Engines.
In relation to your questions concerning French Search Engines here would be a good place to start [webmasterworld.com].
I and my fellow moderators hope that you will like this place. It is like a "University of Search Engine Optimization and Webmaster Techniques", with an enormous amount to read - at present more than 25.000 posts.
Please take a moment to view the charter [webmasterworld.com], where you will find information about the European forum. Because of its special fact finding nature, it has more than 40 continuously ongoing discussions - one for each country. In order to view them all, you will need to set the list box at the bottom of the forum menu page to "Show All Post". Or just click here [webmasterworld.com].
You will find more information about this forum in the charter [webmasterworld.com]and in the Moderator's chat room [webmasterworld.com].
A couple of tips: there are two useful features here at WebmasterWorld, not commonly found in other discussion fora: flags and e-mail notifications. When you see a discussion of particular interest to you, you can click "Drop flag" at the bottom of the page, and the url to the discussion will then be saved in your own local bookmark file, which you can view by clicking "flags" at the top of each page. You can also subscribe to e-mail messages each time something is added to a forum or to a discussion. From the forum menu, just click on "E-mail Updates" to subscribe to updates for the entire forum. From inside a discussion you click on "E-mail notification" to subscribe to updates for that discussion only. There is also a new and very fast site search, which will help you to find what you are looking for.
If you are new to SEO (search engine optimization) there are two classical discussions that I recommend you to read: "One size fits all SEO" [webmasterworld.com] and "Thou shalt not..." [webmasterworld.com]
And now to your question:
My learned collegue NFFC pointed you to the France discussion, where you will find a lot of the stuff you are looking for. If you want a real quickie of the basics, you might want to read this overview:
[webmasterworld.com...]
There has also been some discussion about France here:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Your help was very useful and saved me a great deal of time.
If I can help any of you please let me know Ill do my best.
Kind regards
Neil
Where do you get the informations about Multimania.com from that this engine use Ask-Jeeves results? I couldn´t figure out that relationship.
Does anybody know what about iFrance.com? Is it a portal, SE or what ever?
And at least:
has anybody numbers that are a bit newer than nov 2000?
1. Wanadoo 3,527,156
2. Lycos Network 2,462,193
3. Yahoo! 2,215,122
4. Tiscali 2,150,372
5. Proxad 2,073,695
6. Vivendi Universal 1,886,262
7. AOL Time Warner 1,748,242
8. Microsoft 1,647,710
9. MSN 1,557,401
10. T-Online = Club Internet 955,910 (Inktomi/Looksmart onboard)
Big changes from November: Lycos up, Mutimania out, T-Online in.
As to your other question we'll have to hope for our learned French friends.
Rang/Domain/partnerships/visitors/reach in %
1. Wanadoo.fr Voila.fr 4 312 54,6
2. Free.fr FAST 3 039 38,5
3. Libertysurf.fr Nomade.fr 2 568 32,5
4. Multimania.com Ask Jeeves 2 461 31,1
5. Yahoo.fr Google 2 454 31,0
6. Microsoft.com Looksmart/INK2 453 31,0
7. Voila.frown 2 169 27,4
8. Yahoo.com Google1 941 24,6
9. Msn.com Looksmart/INK 1 658 21,0
10. iFrance.com ? 1 584 20,0
