Country-Specific Search Engines

At this stage, search is truly global in its reach. Google is the dominant search engine in many countries, but not all of them. How you optimize your website depends heavily on the target market for that site, and the search engines that (are) the most important in that market.

According to comScore data from June 2011, Google receives 68.9% of all searches performed worldwide. In addition, Google is the market share leader in every major regional market. In the Asia Pacific region, however, Google holds a relatively narrow 42.3% to 24.8% edge over Baidu, the largest search engine in China. This is the only regional market in which Google has less than 60% market share, and it also happens to be the largest market for search in the world (in terms of total searches performed).

Here is some data on countries where other search engines are major players:

China

Baidu News reported in April 2011 that Baidu had more than 75% market share in China in 2010 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13205047). This is significant since China boasts the largest Internet usage in the world, with 420 million users in 2010 according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

Russia

According to figures announced by Yandex, the company’s market share in Russia comprised about 65% of all searches in March 2011 (http://searchengineland.com/russias-search-engine-yandex-steathily-moves-west-86458).

South Korea

Naver (http://www.naver.com) was estimated to have about 70% ...

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