Top Australia search engines

Did some research today

[TomWaits]

As far as I can tell, combining information from here, redsheriff.com and alexa, this is roughly how they rank in AU:

ninemsn.com.au - powered by Looksmart AU, then Looksmart US

yahoo.com.au - powered by Looksmart AU, then Yahoo.com directory

google.com.au

(Yahoo.com and MSN.com are also in the top 5)

big falloff, then:

looksmart.com.au

au.altavista.com (not sure)

webwombat.com.au

goeureka.com.au - powered by Looksmart AU

anzwers.com.au - powered by Looksmart AU & Google AU

ozsearch.com.au

websearch.com.au

aussie.com.au

cowleys.com.au

If anyone has further information, please share. I tried to add this to [webmasterworld.com...] , but the thread was too old.

For US-based sites, I am trying to figure out what else we can do besides Google AdWords and Looksmart AU paid clicks. Still researching.

[whats up skip]

I still think you would find there are many people using or being directed to google.com.

I know my toolbar is still defaulting to Google.com.

I think you would find a big variation in who use what engine and how often.

People start off with NineMSN as that's the windows default. More experienced users of search engines and probably heavier users of search engines would use Google.com/com.au.

[TomWaits]

I talked to someone in Australia today and she said exactly what you just wrote. NineMSN & Google.

We in the US complain that there's too much consolidation among SE's, but that's nothing compared to Australia it seems.

It's interesting that I stumbled onto so many SEO's there today. What exactly are they optimizing specifically for Aus? Buy some AdWords, get yourself listed in Looksmart Aus, optimize your pages for worldwide engines, not just Australia, seems like you're finished.

I'm probably oversimplifying but there doesn't seem like there's much else for me to do there if all of these other engines are just nits.

[whats up skip]

May depend on the product or service you are trying to market. Our English language site did get a free listing in Looksmart, but I don't think it had the "right" keywords in it to help much. We have done ok from Yahoo, but I think most of that is international traffic, not domestic Australian traffic.

Our focus for this site is mainly Google. We don't sell products from the site, our revenue is from advertising, so the economics of paying for listings or PPC don't hold very well.

For most of the key phrases in the niche we work in we dominate in Google.com.au.

[keeper]

IMHO, if you ran a CPC campaign on Looksmart AU and Google AU, you would reach a very large proportion of the Australian market with the management of only two accounts.

Sure if you wanted to be extra thorough, I would try AV AU and WebWombat too, it might even be a little easier on the pocket.

<added>Looklistings syndicate to NineMsn, Anzwers, Yahoo, GoEureka and some leading ISP portals like Ozemail and OptusNet. Plain SEO however is a different ball game, as Inktomi generally backs up most of these</added>

[TomWaits]

Thanks, both of you, I sincerely appreciate your help.