It is easy for everyone to think that Google owns the search market. If I want to be on search, I need to be on Google simple as that. Well it isn’t so simple when it comes to international markets. Though Google has a strong grip on the US market, this isn’t always the case in other countries especially when compared to the local search engines.

Who are the players?
Some of these engines are familiar. Yahoo Japan owns more than half the market of Japan. They also have a strong grip on many other international countries. However you will also find country specific engines such as Baidu in China which owns about 60% of its market. Naver in Korea also owns over 60% of it’s market. Yandex in Russia owns little less than half it’s market. Seznam controls nearly 65% of the Czech market.

How is it that these search engines are able to compete with the likes of Google?
They know their market. They have the competitive advantage of targeting a local market and studying on their behaviors, their use of language as well as their preferences. They have worked on their technology and algorithms specifically catering to their local audience. Google unfortunately due to their sheer size and international presence have a more difficult time focusing on their individual markets. For example did you know in Korea, the more busy and complex the page is, the more authority the site is given by it’s users? This goes completely opposite of what one should do in the US where simplicity and targeted pages are key to a good conversion.

Foreign Laws
Another aspect is foreign laws. Local engines like Baidu are well aware with the regulations and as a local pioneer has a lot of say and influence. Large engines like Google have a hard time dealing with all the various laws especially as many countries favor local companies as opposed to foreign competitors. Many of these search engines were started before Google and has firmly established themselves as the market leader.

Google however has put a lot of investment in trying to target these local markets and it is Google’s hope that continued investment and effort will eventually entrench them deeper into these markets.

Paul Lee
Director of Online Marketing
LeadQual - SEM