Popular search engines in Scandinavia (Norway)

[optimalt]

What search engine/directory is providing most traffic to your sites?

1 .Startsiden
2. Kvasir
3. Google
4. MSN
5. Yahoo?

[Rumbas]

Hi optimalt - Welcome to WebmasterWorld. A good way to start to get the know of this place is the Welcome Thread [webmasterworld.com].

Now on to your question.

My top referrers on a popular site with Norweigan language are these:

1. Kvasir
2. Google
3. MSN
4. Altavista
5. Alltheweb
6. Others

A good place to get an idea of the most popular sites is to check NielsenNetratings once in while. Here's the numbers from Norway April 2002 [ereportsacn.netratings.com]

Since you ask, what's your stats?
I think we cover Norway pretty good with this particular site, but it would be interesting to see other stats as well.

Godt nytår fra Danmark ;)

[optimalt]

It would look something like this :

Startsiden 40 %
Kvasir 30 %
Google 12,5 %
Msn 12,5 %
Altavista 2,5
Yahoo 2,5
Alltheweb 0,0003..

Dont get much from altavista and alttheweb...
The site im reffering isn't optimized for SE and have dynamic content.. Get most visitors on a few kewwords that have #1 inn all enginges.

Just woundering how much more there could be to squeze out from google and msn with SEO ...

[edited by: optimalt at 10:07 pm (utc) on Jan. 2, 2003]

[ulstrup]

Kvasir being bigger than Google - interesting!

Rumbas, can you provide some figures?

I don't expect you to provide exact numbers, but some percentages would be interesting.

And Happy New Year to you too!

[Rumbas]

I'd say the numbers optimalt just provided looks scaringly close to my stats:

Kvasir 40%
Google 15%
Yahoo.no 10% (missed it the last time..)
MSN 10%
Altavista 5%
ATW 5%

However, Startsiden is not to be found anywhere in my logs.
How do you track direct referrers from them?

They're a meta engine that sends the query to one of the majors and the referrer would not reflect startsiden?
Am I missing something here or have I just missed out on 40% of my lovely Norweigan traffic? ;)

[optimalt]

Heh :)
Startsiden(.no) (Startpage) the second largest portal in Norway(September), on the frontpage they have "search boxes" for the biggest SE. They've also categorised sites like DMOZ.

[optimalt]

Most of the reffers from them come from the category where my site is listed.. (Reffering pages..)

[optimalt]

Im listed as number 4 in the category. They only show 5 sites on the first page of every category.

Another of my sites isn't listed on the first page, but number 25... it doesn't get as many hits..

My guess is that my 4. place is a traffic generator :)

[Rumbas]

Thanks for the info optimalt. I'll certainly take a look at their directory and see if there's a cat where my site fits in.

Actually I'm surprised that you get that much traffic from the directory. Usually people just use the default search box and dont bother digging down the cats. I guess a listing there can be really good?
Is it difficult to get them to list you? Is it expensive?

[optimalt]

They list for free, take a look in the /faq/#peker

My site gets a lot of traffic from their directory, as they say in their faq, "Only the 5 best is showed on the top pages in the categories". Im luckely enoufh to be there.. I dont know how hard it is to get listed, in their faq they say almost all that submit their sites get listed, if the site fits in one of their categories..

They list for free(!).. :)

[Tor]

As far as I can see what they say in their FAQ-section is that they will display "a small sample of sites" that, in their opinion, "deserves" to be on the first pages of SERPS. To get the rest of the results you have to click on the "More" button. This sample is not neccessarily only 5 sites, it can be 10-15 sites if that is what the editors have selected as their favourites. (For examle the insurance category displays 13 sites on the first page)

[Tor]

My top referrers for Norwegian sites are:

1. Kvasir
2. Google
3. Startsiden
4. MSN
5. Alta Vista

[Rumbas]

Tor, I agree. The more I dig into my stats, the more I see Kvasir really outperforming anything else. I was very suprised to see the sheer volumen it brings to some of our sites.

Really nice to see that it's not all Google, eh? :)

[Tor]

As you know Kvasir has a huge market share in Norway, something like Jubii has in Denmark. The Directory results are listed as the top 5 results and after that Kvasir displays results from Fast (frisøk).