Switzerland & Norway

any unusual SE players?

[Adam_C]

I've got a project for some SEO in Switzerland & Norway.

Can anyone tell me if there are any big search engines other than the usual global players (GG, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, Jeeves...).

Also, what kind of market share do each of the above have.

This info would be very helpful!

[edit_g]

[kvasir.no...]

[startsiden.no...]

[Adam_C]

Thanks

Do you know what sort of market share they have?

Are they spidering search engines in their own right, directories, or use results supplied by another SE?

[stever]

[bluewin.ch...]

Portal (couple of old threads here about it). Traffic minimal compared to Google.ch for sites external to Switzerland (perhaps some Swiss members could comment for Swiss sites).

[sherwoodseo]

Bluewin is powered by Inktomi (now Yahoo - but they still display the Inktomi logo). Another major player is Search.ch, which runs its own crawler.

Market share figures are hard to come by, but in terms of audience reach they are definitely double-digit players.

[Rumbas]

Kvasir is HUGE in Norway. Gut call wouls be somewhere between 60-70%..

[Adam_C]

That is huge.

Would it be fair or accurate to say that

google
yahoo
msn

is the general hierarchy, with a couple of regionals thrown in for good measure?

[Rumbas]

Yeah that would be fair, but as mentioned, some local players are very huge, so you need to take that into account.

[rencke]

I checked the July logs for two busy sites in Norwegian language. Both rank well and are advertised in both Google and Kvasir:

Google 50% of all search engine referrals
Kvasir 25-35%

MSN and Yahoo are pretty insignificant in Norway, at least from my perspective.

[Tor]

Do you know what sort of market share they have?

Kvasir har a market share of approx. 55%

[kservik]

www.startsiden.no is the largest directory in Norway.
www.gulesider.no is the largest cataloge
www.kvasir.no is largest search engine and uses Google tech.

They all have dominant marketshare.

[Tor]

www.startsiden.no is the largest directory in Norway.

Startsiden is a portal which is composed as a collection of links to almost everything in Norway. Many people use it as their default startpage when opening their browser.

www.gulesider.no is the largest cataloge

Gulesider is Yellowpages in Norway.

www.kvasir.no is largest search engine and uses Google tech.

Kvasir is by far the biggest directory in Norway. It uses Google-results as backfill to their sponsored results.

Just want to make sure that there are no misunderstandings ;)

[sherwoodseo]

Tor, when you say that it's the Startsiden is the default homepage for many Norwegians, do you mean that many people make it their homepage, or that many people have that as their preset homepage when they get their PC or ISP?

[Larryhat]

Hello all, good thread.

Does anyone know if Kvasir has a free site submission page? I have a special Scandinavian map I want to suggest on my non-commercial site. Thanks - Larry

[kservik]

Startsiden are set manually as their homepage, its not predefined.

For non-comerial sites, then add here:

[kvasir.no...]

[Tor]

You would normally need help from a Norwegian speaking person in order to fill out the submission form. (It has to be in Norwegian)

You can also submit your site to Startsiden and if you`re lucky you might get it included in their index after a editorial review by their staff. (Also non-domestic sites can be accepted)

[Larryhat]

Thanks guys! I'll give it a try. - Larry

[Sinner_G]

Some stats for Switzerland here [webmasterworld.com], but over a year old. Don't have access to any sites stats now, so can't tell if it has changed since then.