SEO for Google or something else?

There aren’t many in Sweden who have worked specifically with the many other search engines in the world. Bing might be an exception, but what about the rest?

Google is so dominant in Sweden in terms of market penetration that we here often forget that in other parts of the world, completely different search engines are popular. If you’re planning to focus on SEO internationally, it might be the case that Google isn’t always the right choice, because sometimes you have to make a selection.

Here’s a quick overview of Google’s different competitors in various countries and some tips on how to investigate where you should focus.

If you’re interested in Sweden and Google, we recommend checking out our page for SEO.

Yandex

One example is the Russian market. If you’ve worked there for a while, you know that the popular Yandex has completely different characteristics than Google. This is something you have to handle. For example, Yandex didn’t have any rules for buying thousands of links for a long time, and you wouldn’t suffer any negative effects from it. Additionally, social signals became really important in Yandex a few years ago. A completely opposite playing field compared to Google. However, it wasn’t Facebook or Twitter that played a big role, but the popular Russian network, vKontakte.

I’ve seen several Swedish SEO specialists try to make a name for themselves in the Russian market without fully understanding the differences. Optimizing for Google is not the same as optimizing for Yandex. Furthermore, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to choose what you want. The competition regarding the number of links in Yandex is, in some segments, completely different from Google. It may very well be that you have to scrape together 10,000 cheap links to be able to take positions in Yandex, something that would directly penalize you in Google. SEO for Google is definitely not the same as for Yandex.

Here, our recommendation is often to work with completely different sites for the different search engines. One that will be totally penalized in Google’s search results but can rank well in Yandex, and another that doesn’t reach the top in Yandex results but can rank well in the more discerning search engine.

Yahoo/Bing

“Even if you’re aware of them, the likelihood is quite small that you use these siblings. Yahoo and Bing have had a close partnership for several years and, in many ways, display the same results. In Sweden, neither of them has gained much traction, other than being the default search engine for Windows, one might think. However, they are much more popular in other countries. In Japan, Yahoo holds 35% of the market share in the past month (according to Statcounter). In the U.S., the two together reach 13%, which is not insignificant on such a large market.

Interestingly, Yahoo and Bing have search results so similar to Google’s that they’ve actually gotten into trouble for it, with claims that the search results were copied. Generally speaking, they largely copy Google, but they’re not as aggressive with filtering (according to our experience). So, it is possible to optimize for all three, even though you might want to be a little more aggressive with Google’s two competitors.

Baidu

For those who want to do SEO in China, you face a completely different challenge. Baidu is the largest search engine, followed by Haosou, Sogou, and Shenma. In many ways, from what little we know about Baidu, the search engine seems to be an attempt to copy Google. Whether it has succeeded or if that’s true, we don’t have an answer to.

The main differences between Baidu and Google, as we know them, are primarily two: They agree to censor search results, and the server’s location is much more important. Otherwise, your opinion is just as valid as ours.

Tips

If you’re interested in how people search in different countries (or what OS they use, etc.), I would recommend checking out Statcounter. It’s a traffic analysis service that has been around for a long time and provides a lot of data. They’re better at that than their own analytics tools (or at selling links for that matter, Google it if you want some entertainment).

At Brath, we mostly work with Google, but we have experience with many other search engines, both large and small. As you can see, we have gaps in our knowledge even though we have SEO specialists who have worked in many countries. So we’d love to receive some tips if you, for example, have experience with Baidu. Feel free to send us an email, and we’d be very grateful.