Major Search engines in middle east

[webgeneral]

Has anyone got any information on Middle East specific search engines and directories and search engine market reach figures for those engines and directories?

[Woz]

Webgeneral,

I have a list of engines, perhaps not complete, that I have been meaning to post for some time. Thanks for the nudge. Keep an eye out.

Onya
Woz

[HitProf]

Woz,

Have you ever posted this list of ME search engines somewhere?

I have the same question right at this moment: I need a list of search engines in the Middle East, or more specific: Egypt.

Thanks!
HitProf

[Susanne]

Hi HitProf,
I am based in Egypt and have a few links for you but I think most of them are directories. Haven't checked them for a long time so you might have some dead ones in this list. Beware that some might not even be Middle Eastern! I don't have time to double check them right now:

Accessme.com (ISP, Woz)
Adminet.com (global gov/admin directory, Woz)
[Arabji.com...]
[Arabsites.com...]
digitalarabia.com (DMOZ clone, Woz)
[Egypt.com...]
[Egyptbot.com...]
Egyptfocus.com (travel guide, Woz)
[egyptsearch.com...]
egyptvoyager.com (info site, Woz)
egyway.com (parked, ezsearch, Woz)
eyp.com.eg (Egypt Yellow Pages, Woz)
idsc.gov.eg (Egyptian Gov, Woz)
[kufta.com...]
madeinmiddleeast.com (404, Woz)
mesafreen.com (Travel portal, Woz)
[middle-east-pages.com...]
[mideastinfo.com...]
[newmar.net...]
only-egypt.com (parked, Woz)
[sourceegypt.com...] (Simpatico, Woz)

If you tell me a little about the site you want to submit then maybe I can point you in other directions. What is the main business of the site or sites? I have access to more links, let me know if you need them. Are you looking for sites in Arabic?

Maybe a listing like this goes agains TOS of the forum but you can always sticky mail me for the list if this post gets edited by the moderator.

Cheers, Susanne

Webgeneral, if you are still around, you might find this article interesting. Not exactly what you asked for but anyway. It has some statistics about Internet use here in Egypt.

[philly.com...]

(Susanne, I checked and linked the appropriate URLs for you - Woz)

[edited by: Woz at 11:33 am (utc) on Sep. 15, 2002]

[HitProf]

Thanks Susanne

I'll check them out. Google pointed me to several others as well:

[4arabs.com...]
[Ajeeb.com...]
[Ayna.com...]
egyptian-pages.com (parked, Woz)

and several others, most are directories.

It's for a small English-language paramedical website.
If you'd have some specific links for me, that'll be great.

(Checked and linked appropriate URLs - Woz)

[edited by: Woz at 11:45 am (utc) on Sep. 15, 2002]

[webgeneral]

I'm still here, yeah thats very useful information, I'm just doing some background research into the market, wanted to know which were the most popular Middle East search engines both in English and Arabic.

[Susanne]

Hi guys,

This is a very popular site (with a directory) in Egypt
[masrawy.com...] (DMOZ clone - not up to date, Woz)

Another directory:
[middleeastdirectory.com...]

Sorry HitProf, I don't have any really specific links regarding your site. Are you targeting any person in Egypt or maybe expats only? If the site has some sort of business based in Egypt, then maybe other sites (not directories) might be useful to get traffic. Is it for medical care or products? Are you searching for links only for link popularity reasons or for human visitors?

One idea is to search for African directories, not only Egyptian and Middle Eastern. Even though Egypt politically or culturally sort of belongs in the Middle East, in directories it is always placed under Africa.

(Checked and linked URLs - Woz)

[edited by: Woz at 12:08 pm (utc) on Sep. 15, 2002]

[Woz]

HitProf, that project got put on hold unfortunately, hence the (long) delay.

These are some directories and search engines for Israel and Jewish interests. Although Jewish directories are technically not country specific, these two are so intertwined I though they may be useful. They are in a mixture of English only, Hebrew only, and bi-lingual.

[achla.co.il...]
[iguide.co.il...]
[maven.co.il...]
[nana.co.il...]
[reshet.co.il...]
[walla.co.il...]
[iol.co.il...]
[isralink.co.il...]
[jewish.com...]
[jewishstar.com...]
[zulu.co.il...]
[gogo.co.il...]
[crosswinds.net...]
[metzia.com...]
[mishmash.virtualave.net...]
[jewishsites.org...]

Susanne, Welcome to WebmasterWorld, thanks for a great list of Search Engines.

Also Susanne, do you know what the surfing habite of people in the Middle east are in general? For example, Do they surf mainly in English or Local Languages? Do they use the Major Engines or Local ones? and so on. Any information you my be able to share would be greatly appreciated.

Onya
Woz

[Susanne]

Thanks Woz, and thanks for your list too!
People here generally surf in English and use the normal major engines.
There are so few people using the Internet here and those who do are normally very fluent in English. They see it as perfectly natural to use only English on the web even though they might read Arabic online newspapers etc.
And when I ask people why they don't use Arabic the answer is always that there are no sites in Arabic anyway! They already know that what they are looking for is most likely found on an English site rather than on an Arabic one. I don't know much about the other countries here in the Middle East but I would imagine the stats to be similar.

What I would find really very interesting too, is to know how many of the Internet users here are actually foreigners living and working in the region? I expect the percentage to be fairly high and I can see some clear patterns in the stats of one of the sites I am working with. Example: why would a site about scuba diving in the Red Sea have so many visitors from Saudi Arabia? Because of all the expats living there! Definitely not because Saudis come here and dive.

[HitProf]

Thanks Susanne and Woz, you've been a great help.

We're looking for human visitors rather than links alone ;-), both expats and Egyptians, as long as they speak English. It's certainly a good idea to target expats in surrounding countries as well.

Thanks again, HitProf

[Susanne]

Thanks for checking the links Woz. Lots of garbage there, sorry!

Here come a few more:

[arabdatanet.com...] (focus on US-Arab trade and commerce)
[egyptsites.com...]
[muslimtrade.net...]
[sinsal.com...]

HitProf, have you found these yet?
[health.egnet.net...]
[sinsal.com...]

Cheers, Susanne

[Woz]

>Lots of garbage there, sorry!

No worries Susanne, bookmarks can go south very quickly if you are not checking them every day.

I assume you are an expat. We had a discussion [webmasterworld.com] a while ago about the viability of PPC systems in the greater Asian region.

The only reagion we had little information about as the middle east. As I said in that thread, "The wild card entry goes to the Middle East, lots of money, but how to get hold of it?"

From what you are saying I gather that the majority of the online population in the Middle East, with the exception perhaps of Israel, would be a combination of the more affluent members of society and expats. Would I be correct in this assumption? And if so, then perhaps these people would be the main marketing targets which would therefor dictate marketing strategies to a certain extent.

Love to hear your ideas on this.

Thanks

Onya
Woz

[Susanne]

Yes, I believe you are right. Egypt is a desperately poor country with over 65 million inhabitants and less than a million of those use the Internet according the the article in one of the above posts. I really don't have much trustworthy information about the region but it seems logical that most users are temporary and permanent expats, and relatively well off locals. At least here in Egypt.
When you say "lots of money" which countries do you refer to? Israel and Lebanon? The oil rich states?
Wish I could be of more help. But I will listen around among expat and local friends and see if they have any interesting comments.

Something that has bothered me a little here is that a PPC campaign where you expect to get hits from this region might fail because the ads are not shown here! One example is Overture ads on Yahoo.com. The same goes for MSN. Altavista seems alright though. Google AdWords as well.
I have clients who could do well with a PPC campaign because their old sites are in a mess and it will take time before they rise in normal search engines after my hard SEO work. But how can I sell PPC when nobody can see it here! Suppose I will have to stick with Google. But I know people here like Yahoo very much and it would really make a difference if they would show PPC ads in the Middle East.

[Susanne]

Just came across this poll in MSN Arabia (http://www.arabia.msn.com). Of course it does not prove ANYTHING at all about demographics, Internet use or online habits in this region but I was surprised at the percentage of young users. Take it for what it is, completely irrelevant statistics but still of some interest. It could be interesting to compare this with real stats (if we can find any!).

How old are you?
10-20 35.38% (554) Votes
21-30 38.57% (604) Votes
31-40 17.62% (276) Votes
41-50 5.49% (86) Votes
51-60 2.94% (46) Votes

Total Votes: 1566

Read the previous polls as well. There are some very interesting ones! Like "What stops you from buying online?" and "Where are you from?" etc

[webgeneral]

As a continuation of this theme has anyone a list of the major UAE search engines/directories for a property portal I am promoting.