Multilingual Search moves and seeks new contributors

Multilingual Search has moved house - to www.multilingual-search.com.

Explains managing editor, Andy Atkins-Krüger, "We've received a great deal of encouragement from readers who say we're providing a useful service. Now we've made Multilingual Search easier to use for marketers who are researching particular projects. It's now possible to view only posts from the country in which you're interested."

And we're looking for new contributors to extend our reach right around the globe!

Do give us your feedback and comments - they're much appreciated.

Yahoo! Invests $1 Billion in China's Alibaba

Seems the battleground between the major search engines has shifted to China. Following Google's interest in Baidu - that recently went public and whose stock is performing well - Yahoo has announced a billion dollar investment in Alibaba - a Chinese ecommerce site.

The billion dollar's gets Yahoo! a 40% stake in the company.

A recent MarketWatch article gives a good overview of the recent increase in activity of search engine and tech stock in the Asian continent.

AOL targeting Latino Market

Seems AOL is joining the popular push to attract more Latin traffic. They have announced a new TV and radio campaign whose goal is to draw more Latinos to AOL.

The Spanish speaking market seems to very popular right now.

Google Buys Brazilian Tech Company

Google annouced it purchased Akwan Information Technologies, a Brazilian search company. Google plans on establishing a Research and Development division there and to use it as a base to spearhead their Latin American efforts.

IP tv

Telecom Italia and Tiscali announced the launch of IP tv starting at a T.B.D. date some time between September and November of this year.

Telecom Italia is now broadcasting Video On Demand via Rosso Alice 4 Mbit ADSL which they are planning to use for the newly announced IP tv service. The service will initially be available in 21 cities reaching an estimated 4 million families.

Source: Corriere della Sera

Google China Hire Starts MSN Lawsuit

Seems a new hire at Google, formerly of Microsoft, has created a stir and has been served with a lawsuit by MSN.

ZDNet reports that Kai-Fu Lee is being sued by Microsoft for "the confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when he began working" and was now disregarding.

Canada May Outlaw Google

Interesting article about the impact of new laws in Canada. Search engines in Canada will have to be very aware of copyright laws, though the international nature of the web may make it hard to enforce.

The only possibility is that the engines create different submitting procedures for the .ca version of the business.

Chinese search engine - Baidu - to float its shares

Baidu is reportedly about to float increasing the speculation about Google's position in China. Baidu is the leading Chinese search engine - and one which Google bought a 4% stake in during 2004.

It is known that Google CEO - Eric Schmidt - flew to China last week and there are rumours that Google will attempt to buy Baidu as Google's own site does not have the leading position the company's become accustomed to!




Google facing search engine China quandary - Yahoo! News

Yahoo makes first moves on Poland

Yahoo is heading towards a Polish launch - at least that's the conclusion of the Warsaw Business Journal which reports that Yahoo has launched Polish-language email accounts with 1 GB capacity.

Currently, the Yahoo domain for Poland - pl.yahoo.com redirects to Yahoo's UK site.

Yahoo currently operates native-language portals in Europe as shown by the map on their world.yahoo.com portal - but despite having a Russian language portal - Yahoo has little eastern European presence. In fact, they include the Russian language site as part of their presence in the US - targeting Russian speakers in north America.


Source - Warsaw Business Journal Online

China Joins Spam Fight

An article at internetnews.com, annouced that China is joining the internation battle against SPAM.
China, the article notes, is the leading nation for zombie computers - infected computers that are used to send Spam. They have joined the 29 nation (and 17 private sector groups) task force to combat Spam.

Mozbot: New French Search Engine

Gary Price over at Search Engine Watch pointed this new engine out today. The engine is still in beta, and is getting its listings through a partnership with Google.

The add-ons seem to be the interesting elements that could make them popular. They have a personal "blacklist", a link to the archive.org (The WayBack Machine), Whois information, dictionary definitions and other additional features.

According the article Mozbot is looking to expand to the UK and US.

Information on Broadband Access in Italy

 

 

 

"Osservatorio Banda Larga" provides updated information on broadband access in Italy. The web site requires registration and provides up to date studies and articles from qualified journals and newspapers.

New Spanish search engine about to appear?

Could the Spanish 'Paginas Amarillas' (Spanish Yellow Pages) be about to launch a new Spanish search engine?

Lucía Bartolomé contacted 'Multilingual Search' regarding having spotted a site at www.noxtrum.com under development. Currently only indexing is taking place.

Lucia says "The owner of the search engine is TPI (Telefónica Publicidad e Información), which is the owner of the spanish Yellow pages (www.paginasamarillas.es). They intend to link the information on the SERP with the information in the Yellow Pages, and basic inclusion in the search engine would cost 32€. They don't specify whether it's a monthly fee or whatever. "

TPI haven't officially informed us of any developments - we'll investigate and update this story as it develops.

Hong Kong to Enact SPAM laws

The Direct Marketing News ran an interesting story that the Telecommunications Authority was getting ready to enact SPAM laws.

Italian ICTLex wins Freedom blog awards 2005

The European section of Reporters sans frontières has chosen the Italian blog www.ictlex.net as one of the most active Blogs defending freedom of speech. Ictlex.net was identified as the best blog in Europe, and one of the top 60 blogs worldwide.

Source: Corriere della Sera

Seekport nominates Elena Bonini Head of Index

Seekport Tecnologie, the new pan European Search Engine has nominated Elena Bovini Head of Index for Italian activities launched this past Tuesday.
Elena is responsible for the quality of results provided by seekport.it and is based in Milano. She will coordinate the editorial staff and oversee all search and indexing activities in Italy.

Register.it launches pre-registration procedure for .eu TLDs

Milano, June 23rd 2005 – Register.it leader on the Italian market of web site hosting, online visibility and part of the DADA Group has been officially authorised by EURid to accept preliminary registration of .EU TLDs as of today

Register.it is currently accepting pre registration of .EU TLDs free of charge at

http://we.register.it/domains/eu/

The offer is valid until August 31st 2005

Fight over Misspelled "Googl" Domain In Australia

The Australian courts may determine who has the rights to misspelled versions of trademarked domain names. Accoording this story from ZNet a local Australian businessman bought the domain but the registrar decided to take it back as in their opinion it was an obvious misspelling of Google.
The businessman is now suing for the return of the domain and the decision of who has rights to misspellings in Australia will go to the courts.

Seekport expands it’s reach to the Italian community

Seekport, the innovative European search engine which is already active in Germany, France, UK and Spain, expands it’s reach to the Italian community and launches seekport.it



Joachim Kreibich has answered our questions in a brief interview in connection with the launch of Seekport Italy:


1. Would you like to introduce Seekport - who is Seekport ? Where is Seekport based ? Is there going to be an office in Italy ?
Seekport is a pan-European search engine that provides an alternative to the US-based search engines that are dominating the market. We engage both in B2B as well as B2C activity. B2B means that we deliver search results to portals, publishers, ISPs, marketers etc. which incorporate our search functionalities in their online offerings. B2C is aimed at the end user - persons that want a high quality, country-specific offering with less spam and more relevant local content than what the US companies offer. Also, it is noteworthy that we are the only search company that already can offer vertical search - our users can choose if they want to search only in a certain thematic topic, and then only receive results from this category.
We are based in Germany, in Hamburg and Munich. Actually, the history of Seekport is closely connected to Infoseek - the persons involved are the same that made Infoseek to the most successful search engine in Germany in the beginning of the new century.

We have local index teams in all countries that we operate in, that ensure that the quality of the index is up to our standards and that the search results reflect the demands of the local country. Our teams are - next to Germany - in Paris, London, Madrid and now in Milano. At the end of the year, we will be present in 9 countries in Europe.

In Italy, we will start with a beta version, which will already incorporate the preview functionality. Other functionalities we offer will be introduced a little bit later, and we will also work heavily on the index in the beta phase. All users are welcomed to send us comments and suggestions.

2. Which is going to be the focus of Seekport - are your objectives a particular segment of the search market ?

See also above. We offer both general search as well as vertical search. Also, and very interesting for our B2B clients, we offer site and archive search, and this can be combined with the web searches, so that a B2B customer can display site or archive and web results on one page.

In general, we want to give our customers the best search experience possible. For example, in Germany we already offer various suggestions to make a search query more specific, so that the user really gets the search results he is actually looking for

3. Give us an overview of the main features of your search Engine

General country-specific or Europe-wide web search. Vertical (theme-oriented) web search. Example. A user is looking for virus. Now, this can be both virus as in computer virus, or health virus. If our user however chooses "Health" as his topic, he will only be displayed search results which deal with viruses such as HIV, hepatitis virus etc..

We will also offer clusters, query refinements etc. For our B2B clients, also the above-mentioned site and archive search are relevant.

4. The Seekport interface is geared towards country specific results. In Italy we have many English only web sites with a .it suffix - could you explain how you have organised country specific queries versus regional web sites ? Will for example .co.uk web site acquire a better visibility than .it ones if the user runs a search selecting the pages from a specific European country ?

In general, we aim to have search results that are very country-specific. Regarding your example: We know that the great majority of users searches in its own language, and prefers to have results that are in his language. This no longer is a problem, as there are now - at least in Europe - more than sufficient web pages to all topics in the local language. If a user wants to have more results, he can choose to search in all indices.

Now, if an Italian user looks for information in English and does not restrict his search to Italy, an Italian page will not be given a higher weight than a UK one. The results will be displayed by relevancy.

5. I have noticed that you are providing a free service called seekbot where you provide an analysis of a web site page - The results show that on page content is very important, even more important than the title tag - would you like to further elaborate the importance of on site factors compared to off site factors such as external links ??

I am sure that you will understand that we will not elaborate on our ranking algorithm. Many factors influence the positioning. But most certainly, the factors described in seekbot are important. Seekbot is a tool for the normal webmaster that might not know too much about what is important for placement in search engines in general, and might not be aware of what he should do as a minimum.

6. Spamdexing is a very serious issue all search engines are closely looking at to remove poor quality web sites - where does Seekport stand on this issue ?

We very much disapprove of spamdexing, and try to keep our index as free of spam as possible. This is why we have quality teams; these teams - among other tasks - try to keep up with what spam is present in the local countries, and take on countermeasures. Of course technology plays an important part in this.

7. You have introduced a very interesting preview window function that allows the user to view the web site before actually clicking on the link that would take him/her to the web site: Would you like to elaborate on this original implementation on SERPs ??

We think all features that help users evaluate if a search result might be relevant for him are useful. As mentioned above, we have various functionalities that follow this goal, and there will be more to come

8. What is Seekpot’s view on local search and geotargeting ?

Very important, and we are working on it

9. Will Seekport have a Directory ?

No, this is not planned. I would like to stress that our vertical search offering is not based on a directory, but on an innovative technology that analyses the web pages that are crawled and then assigns a "theme"/topic automatically. This is an advanced technology, which we have registered for a patent

10. Can you give us any insight on your plans regarding Pay per Inclusion or Pay Per Click programs ?

We will of course have a pay per click program on our site (after all, we need to make money), but not in the very beginning. Pay per inclusion is not planned.

Scary Non-Privacy Issues in Europe

CNet reports in this article that though the European Union government failed to adopt Privacy legislation, requiring ISPs to record all electronic communication, it seems the individual countries have decided to implement the laws.

As the article mentions "U.K. communication service providers already retain data on customers' phone calls, e-mails and Web behaviour for one year, thanks to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act."

.EU Registrar Accreditation

Starting 11.00 (CET) on 16 June 2005, the European Registry of Internet Domains we will begin to accredit .eu registrars

Web Agencies liable for trademark infringements on .it Domain Names

A recent ruling of an Italian court has caused turmoil in the online industry. A maintainer was tried and found guilty of setting up a domain name on behalf of a customer, who was infringing trademark laws of a well-known enterprise operating in Italy.

In the online search industry the domain name may become a relevant part of the search strategy: keyword-rich domain names have been known to be favoured by search engines, giving them the ever-so-slight advantage on competition. It is not uncommon to seek a local presence by setting up a new local domain to acquire visibility.

The procedure to set up an .it domain name involves 3 parties:

• The Italian Registration Authority (NIC.it)
• A Provider/Maintainer
• The end user

A maintainer is typically a web agency or internet provider who deals directly with NIC.it. The end user is required to undersign a formal request of activation (called la lettera di assunzione responsabilità). The maintainer is required to follow a technical procedure to finalise registration.

The provider/maintainer, formally considered neutral in the process, is now held responsible and accountable for damages caused to others should infringements on registered trademarks be raised by a 3rd party.

The court identified providers/maintainers as an active party in setting up a domain name. By registering a domain name that relates to a registered trademark, the sentence identified the actions of the provider/maintainer similar to those of a “counterfeiter”.

The judge defined domain name purchasing as a typical entrepreneurial activity where risk is involved: Providers/Maintainers requesting the activation of a domain name, possibly a registered trademark, are being warned: You are liable for trademark infringements in Italy.

China's Sohu Commits to Emphasize Search

Sohu seems to have adopted the Avis moto, "We try harder." And, taking the global Google out of the mix, like the Avis, Sohu is China's number two search engine.

The Chinese government has tightened restrictions on internet companies, and search engines and portals in particular. With a ban on two of the largest income producing search areas; adult content and gambling, Chinese search companies need to reach out to other industries.

The interesting aspect of this is the non-capitalist Chinese may have to embrace their antithesis.

Country-specific Links in Google Rise in Global SERPs

A recent thread at Search Engine Watch forums discusses the improving positions of country-specific domains in the Google SERPs.

Whether this is a change in the algorithm or just that more international webmasters are developing increased links in the international community has yet to be determined. But the most insightful post discusses the fact that local inbound links have a big impact for results in that locality. If you are looking to improve your site for a specific country get links from that country - even non-topic specific links (though this I am going to test before taking it as a fact).

A Video a Day keeps Digital Divide Away

Starting June 13th TgBlog will broadcast daily a 30" video on the Internet for those wanting to use it but don't know where to start.

TgBlog focus is information and useful tips on how to make the web part of everyday life to find a job, travel, listen to music and find useful information.

China Requires Blog and Site Registration

The freedom of the web is limited by the country it is connected to these days.

As the article from Reporters Without Borders tells us China now requires every blogger and webmaster to register their online presence.

China appears to be leading the way in Internet despotism. Though the Chinese government is suggesting 75% jumped to and registered, I find that hard to believe. It is more likely the governemnt has a much lower number for Chinese based websites.

The funny thinng about this annoucement is that it comes at a time when big internet businesses are pushing into the Chinese market. Hopefully capitalism will help erode confidence in the Communist regime and eventually things will change.

Wi-max services in Italy starting 1st July

The Italian Minister of Telecommunications Mario Landolfi has announced the launch of Wi-max («Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access») starting next July. Wi-max will be available for an initial 6 month period on an experimental basis, in a limited number of regions, and selected cities (Piemonte, Sardegna, Siciliy, Valle d'Aosta and Abruzzo, the cities of Rome, Milan, Arezzo and Parma).

Wi-max represents an excellent opportunity to leapfrog towards a networked society, especially for the rural areas where broadband internet access is rarely available.

Reported by: Il Corriere della Sera

Opodo moves into Spanish

Big brand Opodo has moved into its ninth European market with the launch of www.opodo.es. Opodo is already well established in the UK, Germany and France - and already entered the Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Finnish markets in early 2005 through two acuqisitions - Eviaggi and Travellink.



Reported by Travel Daily News

Google to develop Israel

According to Israeli newspaper - Haaretz - Google is looking to open an office in Israel and to build its network of partners in the country.

Haaretz - Israel News - Google to launch Israeli subsidiary, challenging local Internet portals

Seekport launches Spanish search engine just for Spain

Seekport - the German-born search engine, which recently moved out of beta in the UK as reported in this blog, has launched a Spanish site for the Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician languages - just for Spain.



The company's strategy is to produce spam-free results by using human editors to improve their quality. In the case of Spain, the editorial team will be ensuring that results from Latin and South America are removed from the results - with web sites using the .es domain most prominently displayed.

Seekport says it has appointed a Spanish editorial team and opened offices in Madrid. The search engine is currently located at www.seekport.com.es - but as soon as the 100%-owned Spanish subsidiary has been created - it will move to www.seekport.es.

The company is planning a launch in Italy for the end of June which will mean the company is "Online in the most important European countries," says CEO Joachim Kreibich, "Nevertheless, this year we will also be launching in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe."

Seekport Internet Technologies GmbH Press Story in German

Italians and the Internet

According to recent EUROSTAT research, the internet in Europe has reached an estimated 89% of enterprises and 50% of the population. Italian industry is in line with the European average, but Italians are not connected as much when compared to other European citizens.

The report shows only 31% of Italian households are connected and regularly using the Internet, similar to Eastern European countries such as Lithuania and Poland.

The difference is most likely due to the higher prices of ADSL connections which on average differ by a factor 3 (in excess) when compared to equivalent Broadband subscriptions sold in France or Germany.

Another negative factor contributing to the “Italian Digital Divide” is the absence of ADSL connectivity outside of major cities: It is common to find important suburbs and entire towns slightly beyond the reach of ADSL nodes.

Souces:

Rai.it
Beppegrillo.it

Broadband brings cinema to Italian living rooms

Rosso Alice, a TELECOM ITALIA Company, has announced it will be offering online film vision before films reach Italian cinemas and movie theatres, thanks to an agreement with Mikado, starting June 22nd.

TELECOM ITALIA has upgraded all ADSL connections to 1.2 Mbit/s and promised an even further increase to those subscribing to the Rosso Alice profile up to 4 Mbit/s, allowing Video on Demand.

In an attempt to attract the younger and more demanding audience, TELECOM ITALIA has also announced a partnership with Mtv called 'Mtv on demand' a new channel created for the online distribution of music.

Rosso Alice Provides Films in Pay Per View, gaming, and Music and is re-shaping the traditional multimedia industry in Italy. A flat broadband ADSL subscription to the Interent in Italy ranges between € 26,00 and € 40,00 per month.

ANSA

France presents the facts about the French and technology in California

A fascinating article in Silicon.com tells of France trying to change its 'image problem' in the world of technology. Thus is revealed some interesting information about French culture - and France's place in the world:

• France has a higher percentage of 20 to 29 year olds with qualifications in science or technology than the UK or US.
• Start-ups qualify for an 8-year income tax holiday!
• France is the third-largest recipient of foreign aid and the fourth largest exporter.
• 10 of the world's 100 largest companies are based in France.

France grapples with its image problem - silicon.com

Das Keyboard UberGeeks only

Looking for a posh hi-tech keyboard ?? Metadot Corporation from Austin Texas introduces the keyboard defined as "Only For the Best". What makes it so different from the others ?? It bears no inscription on the keys - 100% blank ... could be a useful solution for multilingual search marketers!

Metadot Corporation: Das Keyboard

Italian families invest in Broad Band Internet Connections

A new report called 'e-family-2005' of the Association Federcomin, shows more and more Italian families are investing in broad band connections to the internet. An increase has been registered in digital cameras, DVDs, satellite connections, and broad band internet access. The study shows a significant drop in purchasing of PCs and cell phones. Italians are also showing less interest for video game consoles. Fax and answering machines are "obsolete"

ANSA: Famiglia e Nuove Tecnologie

Google's desktop tool goes multilingual

The Google blog has announced that the desktop search tool is now available in a wider range of languages comprising of French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Japanese and Korean.


Google Blog: Speaking of search

Multilingual search to recruit 12 new contributors, says blog editor

Multilingual search is to increase its coverage of European and world news by adding additional contributors to its roster, says Editor Andy Atkins-Krüger.

"The news blog was launched almost 3 months ago and has come a long way in a short time.

"Our aim was to bring not-in-English search matters to an English-speaking audience and to act as a catalyst for greater growth - particularly in the European market.

"We're already covering stories that most other blogs pass over and have had a fantastic response from corners of the globe we didn't expect to reach.

"We also recruited great volunteers to add depth to our story finding with Sante Achille from Italy, Laszlo Fazakas from Hungary and Nick Wilsdon from Russia.

"Now we want to recruit another 12 contributors with a passion for mutlingual search who will help to ensure that Multilingual Search is the leading source for search engine information and statistics - when its not in English!"

Volunteers should use the normal contact form.

Multilingual search engines, European internet usage statistics, search marketing, international growth traffic

Greek web users to have 'Greek' domain names from July 4

The Greek alphabet is to make its way into Greek domain names from July 4, the country's telecommunications authorities EETT reported on Tuesday. The step is intended to increase the use of new technologies in Greece.

At the present time, Greek web sites only use the Latin alphabet for domain names - due to both technical problems and a lack of preparation by the registration countries, says the EETT.

Unfortunately for the Greeks, as with other non-Latin alphabets, the step is something of a compromise as the Greek characters have to be slotted in between the protocol (Http://www) and the country top level domain name (.gr).

The EETT says, "The measure should contribute to strengthening the Greek alphabet and give a new momentum to the use of new technologies". Not everyone in Greece knows the Latin alphabet and the recent Eurostat research, reported earlier in this blog, shows that Greece is behind when compared with 30 European nations.

Belgian web connections too expensive, says Belgian study

Belgian web connections are more expensive than those in the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, France, the UK, Germany and Italy, says a study by Belga's Test Achat.

Reported by Expatica

Worldwide broadband penetration shows Netherlands romping ahead in Europe

The far east still heads the league table of most broadband connected countries with South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan all in the top 6. The far east will overtake North America and Europe in the next few years for 'connected households', reports eMarketer.

Intriguingly Canada and four European countries help to beat the US into only 11th place.



Taking just Europe out of the figures, the Netherlands leads the way with Germany and Poland bringing up the rear:

1. Netherlands
2. Belgium
3. Denmark
4. Switzerland
5. Sweden
6. France
7. Spain
8. Finland
9. UK
10. Portugal
11. Norway
12. Austria
13. Italy
14. Germany
15. Poland

The Netherlands is the biggest jumper, says eMarketer, having moved ahead of Denmark and Belgium which beat it in 2004.

As with many statistics, the figures mask some local factors - such as the availability of ISDN which still sees significant levels of usage in countries such as Germany.

China will soon rank as the most broadbanded connected country in the world by number, even though the percentage penetration puts it still right at the bottom of the table.



The Global Broadband Market

Big Clique African-American search engine launches in 17 languages

Mr. Olu, the Will Smith of search engines, has created a new search engine for the world - Big Clique - in fact covering 17 languages from day one an amazingly ambitious undertaking!



Big Clique claims to offer 'Just search...' and nothing else. The choice of languages is intriguing comprising English, Italian, German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Russian, Belarusian, Malay, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Japanese and Chinese. That looks like a list of some of the most commercially interesting languages - with one or two omissions (Norwegian and Danish, for instance) and one or two additions.

Pay per click advertising is by gRock Media Group Company.

Belgian 'social' search engine launches in French only

BelSoc.org has launched a social search engine in the French language in Belgium focusing principally on professionals in the 'social-medical' sector.

Moteur Social claims to only feature pages from Belgium, in the social fields and principally in French language. More of a directory than algorithmic search engine, the intriguing thing about the project is its claim to have 'fewer' pages than other engines - implying that a smaller targeted index will produce a more accurate result.


Moteur social (Be)

Excite Italia Acquired by Ask Jeeves

Excite Italia is now officially part of Ask Jeeves Inc. Tiscali, a major European Internet Company, had acquired 70% of Excite Italia in March 2001, and purchased the residual 30% in April 2002.



The value of the acquisition is estimated to be € 10 million. The disposal of Excite Italia is yet another step of Tiscali in their consolidation and focus on core business.

Ask Jeeves acquires Excite Italia and by doing so expands into Europe, adding an estimated 3 million users per month. Ask Jeeves owns the Excite trade mark worldwide, but so far was not present in Europe.

Wall Street Italia

China has 98.8 million Internet users - ready for the invasion of the US majors.

China is a large country. So even a small percentage of web users produces a big number - 98.8 million users according to an official in the Ministry of Information. Not surprising then that the leading US web-based businesses are falling over themselves to get into the Chinese market.

Just yesterday, Amazon announced its plans to expand in China having bought Joyo.com back in September. At the end of last week MSN announced a joint venture with the Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd, Ebay declared its interest and this followed Google's approval to open an office in Shanghai.

We should all be looking to China it seems....

People's Daily Online -- China has 98.8 million Internet users

Seekport continues its European roll-out with launch in the UK

The German search engine Seekport has moved its UK search engine out of Beta. Seekport launched in the UK in December and claims to offer more UK-oriented results - partly thanks to a team of editors who quality check the engine's results.

Testing of the algorithm suggests that it operates quite differently to other the American search engines currently producing results which seem odd. As far as Web Certain tracking of UK web sites is concerned, Seekport hasn't yet made it onto the radar and it will need some heavy promotion if it wishes to increase its share of the UK market.



Reported by....Netimperative - Seekport UK moves out of test phase

Search marketing seminar - Imitiki - to take place in Lyon sponsored by Google

ImiTiki - the search marketing conference brand which normally runs conferences in Paris, is to run a seminar for the first time in Lyon sponsored by Google. The seminar will be on the 16th of June with the morning focusing on organic search techniques and the afternoon on Google's adwords.



Reported by Abondance

New Saudi Arabian search engine in English launches in Beta

The Saudi-based Dar Al Riyadh Holding Group has launched a new beta version English-speaking search engine built by Tajseed Solutions.



Deepy has a look of Microsoft (that search button...?) and the now standard Google format. However, it has a very neat spelling feature which corrects you as you type.

This may seem innocuous enough - but if English is not your mother tongue and the world's information is largely recorded in English and only findable by searching in that language - you'd appreciate some help with your spelling wouldn't you?

A report carried out in 2004 by Web Certain suggested that Arabic speakers, amongst other non-English mother-tongue speakers, found searching in English less than easy. Deepy may just have come up with a solution which may well be copied by others. Now that would be a good idea if search engines added accent correction to their none-English sites!

Reported by Abondance

Big businesses use the internet to buy, and they're all connected - Eurostat

The official statistics body of the European Union - known as Eurostat - announced its 30 nation report on internet usage throughout Europe on Friday. Report author Morag Ottens, concludes "In most countries internet penetration has reached saturation point in large enterprises" - he also found that 48% of large European enterprises had purchased via the internet in 2004.

Key conclusions of the report are:-

• Half of larger business buy via the internet
• Virtually all European business are connected - even in the weaker economies
  
• Small business are only marginally behind in their use of the internet
• Men are greater users than women but this is narrowing in the younger age gaps
• Broadband is rapidly becoming the method of choice for accessing the internet
• Higher educational levels use the internet more
• Younger age groups show internet usage more than double that of their grandparents
  

51% of men and 43% of women used the internet, as the chart below shows. Intriguingly, this gap is consistent across all countries with high and low penetrations of the internet with the notable exceptions of just Finland and Estonia where women are ahead across all age groups.

Large enterprises were 99% internet-connected - hence the 'virtual saturation' conclusion. Smaller businesses are marginally behind - except in the most active countries such as those in Scandinavia where they are almost alongside their larger colleagues. For large enterprises, only Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Bulgaria and Romania were below 99% - but even then the lowest figure was in Romania which still achieved 90%.


Chart shows use of the internet by individuals and enterprises - click to view.

There is a 16% gap between large enterprises buying on the web (48%) and smaller businesses (32%) - Morag Ottens comments that this is despite the fact that "Gains are expected to be made in terms of efficiency, competitiveness and achieving a wider customer base".


Chart shows large enterprise purchasing via internet - click to view.

The picture across the 30 nations varies only by degree with Scandinavian nations clearly in the lead for use by businesses whilst Germany, Austria, Estonia and the UK overtake Norway when consumers are considered to join the leading group of Finland, Denmark and Sweden .

Slovakia has an unexpectedly high figure of business use and Estonia is above average in terms of individuals. The tailing group in this study comprises of Italy, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary and Portugal who are all below average on both business and consumer use.


Chart shows internet usage by individuals and enterprises by country in 2004

Conclusions

The report is already out of date, of course, as we have seen rapid increases already in 2005. It also covers all use of the internet - as opposed to the web - but what it does do is give a very clear picture that Europe offers a very rich market to be targeted via the web. One group which should take particular notice is business-to-business marketers - who now have great export opportunities open to them whether they are large or small.

The report covers an interesting basket of 30 nations ranging from heavy web users - Scandinavia - to future members of the European Union - including Turkey. Non-members of the European Union such as Norway and Switzerland are also covered.

The full report is available from Eurostat or you can contact Web Certain who will be pleased to forward you a copy.

German search engine Web.de to be bought by United Internet

Web.de signed up to an acquistion by United Internet on Friday for 200 million Euros and a 5.8% shareholding in United Internet. The deal can't go ahead until it's been approved by the German monopolies office - it also still requires the approval of the Web.de annual general meeting. Report by Austrian TV's Futurezone site.

German search engines

The search marketing association EU goes for lift off

For some months a group of search marketers around Europe have been drafting a constitution and plans for an association to represent search marketers.

Following the success of the SMA-UK, Mikkel deMib Svendsen and Andy Atkins-Krüger have been working with Sante Achille from Italy, Ben van den Bergh from the Netherlands, Olivier Guillo of France, Thomas Bindl from Germany and Laszlo Fazakas of Hungary to put the new association together.

Now the association has started the process to run elections for a committee and to recruit paying members!

See the press release on the SMA-EU site.

Spend per internet user in Belgium - lower than the UK and France

An IAB Nederland study reported by Digimedia confirms earlier reports in this blog on Belgian statistics, that the market is somewhat lagging behind. According to the study, spend per person online during 2004 in France was 54 Euros, in the UK 42 Euros and Belgium just 8 Euros. The number of advertisers has gone from just 262 in 2003 to 529 in 2004.

A note of caution over the figures which appear not to fully cover the search market. Whilst the spend per internet user may not be wholly accurate, it seems clear from the comparisons that Belgium is not racing ahead at the same pace as its neighbours.

Belgian statistics take two steps forward

Dutch online advertising grows by 34% in first quarter of 2005

The Dutch Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that the online advertising market grew by 34% in the first quarter of 2005 to 21.5 million Euros.

Emerce, which brings us the report, explains that the bureau brings together 18 organisations including TradeDoubler, MSN, Ilse, Lycos and Wanadoo but doesn't yet include Google or Yahoo, something which IAB Director, Igor Beuker, regrets. This means that the total turnover figure for the industry will be significantly understated.

Ask Jeeves to conquer Western Europe!

CEO of Ask Jeeves has revealed to Reuters plans to roll out the butler throughout western Europe.

Following the IAC acquisition, Ask certainly has more capital at its disposal so it is not surprising to read speculation of a buy-out of Excite Italia from Tiscali, and Spanish expansion. Where next? The biggest single language web corpus which Ask could capture outside of English is German covering Austria, Switzerland and Germany as well as parts of Belgium and eastern Europe. If I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money!

Press release service opens Hungary outlet

GroupWeb.com has opened a new Hungary newswire service at www.hungarynewswire.com. The Budapest-based GroupWeb.com runs GroupWeb Emailwire.com.

58% of Israelis have an internet connection - only 10% via dial-up

The Jerusalem Post brings us the news that Israelis are well connected to the internet with 73% of homes having a computer and 58% an internet connection.

The survey was carried out by the Tel Aviv University's Netvision Institute for Internet Research. Heavy users were found to be generally aged under 29. 43% of internet users access the web at least once a day.

Belgian internet statistics show women overtaking men!

Women are now in the majority of web users in Belgium who access the internet at least once per month - up to the age of 34 that is! Overtall men still represent 55% of regular users and women 45%. The difference is in the age group between 15 - 34 where 1,120,000 women surf and 1,008,000 men - say reports from the Federale Overheidsdienst Economie.

The total number is 4.2 million - as previously reported. Men search more for adult, cars, computers, IT and Sport and women search for personal care, family and cooking. Men are more involved in PC banking and women send more e-cards, reports the Antwerp newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen.

Earlier Belgian statistics report...

Home grown pay per click service arrives at Russian search engine

Russia's leading home grown search engine, Yandex , has launched a new pay per click service for Russia along the lines of the existing Google service.

Thanks to Nick Wilsdon of e3internet which brought us this story - Yandex so far having issued no public comment - as soon as they do we will bring you more...

According to Nick, Yandex operates in way more similar to Google than Yahoo.

Kuwait to launch arabic search engine

The Kuwait News Agency - reported in the China-based online newspaper People's Daily Online - is to launch an arabic language search engine to archive arabic sites on the web.

The news was revealed by the Kuwaiti Director General of the country's Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the world information forum in Cairo.

Internet statistics from Belgium take two steps forwards

Two organisations from Belgium - Insites and ISPA - which publish statistical information on the country's web use, are to join forces to deliver better information for web marketers.

Insites publishes the report known as the Belgium Internet Mapping twice a year. The latest figures - known as 'BIM 12' - were published in December and gave a figure of 4.2 million internet users with 49% of the Belgian population using the internet on a regular basis - in other words at least once per month. It also concluded that a limiting factor on the growth of Belgian web use, was computer penetration. It forecast a potential growth of web use to 57% of the population - but called for incentives to increase the availability of PCs.

BIM 12 also placed Google at the head of the search engine preferences of the Belgians.

The good news is that 85% of Belgians who access the web at home - do so through a fast broadband or cable connection.

ISPA's last internet study was published in February relating to the last quarter of 2004 and, whilst giving different numbers, largely reflected the Insite picture with broadband use reaching 80% of internet connections. The rise in web access, however, was largely static with a growth of just 2% overall (business 2.9%, home 1.8%). Just connections to broadband are increasing at a reasonable pace of 6.5%. In total, ISPA believes the total number of active connections to be just over 2 million.

Overall the picture in Belgium is currently one of relative stagnation - although comparative figures from elsewhere would suggest that increased broadband use means that more time is actually spent online - but neither ISPA nor Insite comment on this.

It is to hoped that the combined efforts of both organisations will enrich the data available to marketers targeting Belgium. We'll keep you posted.

Insites ISPA

Ask Jeeves to buy Italian search engine - Excite Italia

Ask Jeeves is reported to be on the verge of buying Excite Italia from Tiscali for 10 million Euros. Ask was recently purchased by IAC and may well have deep enough pockets now to expand its linguistic offering. It only recently entered the Spanish market with its own Ask brand and this would be a very logical move into another southern European language area.

Finanza e mercati

Zoeken.nl creates 'special days' logos ala Google

Dutch Cowboys tell us that Zoeken.nl has followed Google's lead in changing their logos to suit special days. Google changes its logo to reflect national days - but this means that their logo changes throughout the world. Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch, has suggested that Google should create local identities for nationally important days. Zoeken.nl has spotted an opportunity to respect its own national presence in the Netherlands by doing just that.

The Dutch celebrate their liberation at the end of the second world war with two national days the 4th and 5th of May. The first of these of day of solemn commemoration, the latter a day of joy and celebration.

Thrifty.com goes into French, German and Spanish

American car hire organisation, Thrifty.com, has translated its site into French, German and Spanish - a sign that more of the larger American travel organisations are recognising the need to speak the language of their customers.

Unfortunately, 75% of the page titles remain in English, as do the keywords and page descriptions so they've left something of a challenge for search engines to recognise the languages on the site.

37% of Austrians use the internet almost daily

The Austrian Internet Monitor (AIM) has published its 2005 first quarter figures for use of the internet in Austria with further figures confirming the continuing growth in use of the web. This latest report particuarly reinforces the point that, as the internet becomes more accessible, the degree of daily use also increases with 37% of Austrian's over 14 now using the internet almost daily.

The first quarter of 2005 has increased by 2% in terms of access to the internet (66%), active use has increased by 1% overall (59%) - but intensive use has increased by 2% (46%). This seems to suggest that there is a move towards more active use by those who have access.

The total Austrian web audience is now 4,451,000, 3.3 million of which are accessing on a very regular basis. In the 14-19 age group, 93% have access to the internet.

Austrian Internet Monitor

The very first .eu domain name goes live

The very first .eu domain has gone live on the web today - but don't get your cheque books out yet - this is the registration organisation itself - EURid at www.eurid.eu - which is responsible for managing the new European top level domain name.

Nevertheless, a significant milestone has been passed with the first .eu ever to function thanks to ICANN placing .eu in the web root directory!

Registrations of .eu domain names will be possible before the end of 2005 - with the registration agreement for registrars being published in all the languages of the EU before the end of May. However, there is a four month sunrise period to enable governments and priority organisations to organise their .eu domain names - so in reality .eu will only be open to all in 2006.

Should you buy a .eu domain name? Our advice is, if you operate in several EU countries - do! It may keep your domain name costs under control, protect your trademarks and mean that you are geographically located in the EU - and that means you should feature in the 'pages from...' results. Although that, of course, remains to be seen.


EURid

New French search engine Ketady launches

A new search engine Ketady has been launched in France aiming to provide intelligent search results for users. The idea behind Ketady is that humans respond to humans - rather than machines giving approximated answers via algorithms.

A registration is required - and searchers questions are referred to 'experts' who carry out the necessary search and respond within a guaranteed 10 minutes - rather than 10 milli-seconds! That's excluding night-time, of course.

Using humans is not a totally new concept - but a 10 minute delay seems rather long. It will be interesting to see if the results make the wait worthwhile!

Ketady's news release

Google turns up the heat in French library battle

Representatives of Google started a tour of the press in March to put forward the 'Google Print' plan - the project to digitally capture the world's libraries online, reports the French newspaper 'Le Figaro' in its online edition.

The Google print project aims to digitise over 15 million books and 4.5 billion pages of text from American and British libraries - and then to move on to the rest of the world.

On wednesday morning last, the tour reached France with the Director General of Google France meeting with 130 representatives of the French press. He put forward a 'contract' for the library project which it is aimed to have in place by September. It won't be possible, for instance, for a user to download the entire contents of a book and, in fact, the intention is for just 20% of each book to be online comprising table of contents, summaries, notes on the author, etc. Google will only digitise the whole work if the author has given permission.

It was also revealed at the press conference that although users will be able to access the information for free, book authors will receive a share of the revenue generated by advertising as a result.

One issue, reports Le Figaro, is that the contract proposed will be American and does not protect intellectual property rights in the same way as a French contract. Another French fear is that the library system itself in France will be threatened by the project.

One third of all Germans now shop online, says new study

The Enigma Gfk research group in Wiesbaden has released figures which show that now more than one third of all Germans buy online. During the last year the number has grown by 15% to 23 million which is more than one third of the total population over 14 years.

Of web users, those who actually buy online has gone from 63% to 71% of the total. Most popular purchases are books, tickets for cinema, theatre and sporting events, then clothes, CD's, computer software and games. One of the strongest growth areas has been digital cameras, followed by entertainment electronics, and care accessories.

The study was carried out jointly with TNS Infratest of Munich and 1,035 German internet users were interviewed.

Russian minister claims 18 million internet users

Russian deputy communications and IT minister, Boris Antoniuk, says that Russia has more than 18 million internet users. This compares with 83 million mobile phone users. The minister was speaking at a roundtable on telecommunications and internet legislation hosted by the Federation Council.

Interfax

Dutch consumers prefer to buy online from Dutch sites

A Dutch survey of 381 Dutch online consumers showed that they prefer to buy on the internet from Dutch organisations based on Dutch soil. However, this was not due to any national sentiment - 65% of them are happy to buy from non-Dutch organisations. The reason given for the preference was mainly a lack of trust in the delivery from foreign organisations.

Dutch Cowboys

6 countries sign agreement to take European libraries online.

Reported by Austrian TV, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Hungary have signed an agreement to take national libraries online - in something of a re-buff for Google's idea to do the same. The idea was born of European Commission President, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso and EU Council President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Google's US project encompasses over 15 million works from the libraries of Stanford, Harvard, Michigan, Oxford and New York.

France and Germany combine to create European search engine?

European concern over the power and influence of the American search engines is well known. Now Jacques Chirac has announced that one of the new joint projects which the German and French governments will co-operate on, is the creation of a new European search engine.

They're trying to take a leaf out of Google's book by thinking ahead - this engine will focus on video and images - not text. Known as "Quaero", a web site already exists promoting the project (built in Flash naturally).

Some heavyweight names will be backing the development including Thomson, Exelead, L'INA, France Télécom and Deutsche Telekom.


L' Expansion Article

The internet is growing in the Arab world too!

The Gulf Daily News reports that internet growth in the arab world will slash service costs. The leading country for internet access is the United Arab Emirates, followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A reduction is the cost of broadband is expected which will push internet access higher.

IAB study in France says 6.4% of advertising budgets go online

The proportion of French advertising budgets is going out at an enormous rate. Now taking 6.4% of the total budget - but more significantly the rate of increase has grown from +78.1% in 2004 to +91.7% in the first quarter of 2005.

This means online spend is doubling year on year - according to research for the French Interactive Advertising Bureau - IAB France.

Le Journal du Net IAB France Web Certain Europe - France

Switzerland and Slovakia are Europe's biggest gainers in Economist's e-readiness rankings

Whilst Denmark retains the top spot as the leading e-ready nation even beating the US, Slovakia has moved up 5 places in the rankings from a lowly 39th last year to 34th in 2005 in the latest e-readiness rankings from the Economist.

The Economist Intelligence Unit regularly publishes its e-readiness rankings which are a measure of the country's e-business including such factors as broadband availability and mobile penetration. The latest report has also taken more account of public-access wireless 'hotspots'.

European nations do well in the 65 nation study taking many of the top spots. The full list is available at the Economist Intelligence Unit - here is a list of the European nations in order of rank:

• Denmark 1st
• Sweden 3rd
• Switzerland 4th
• UK 5th
• Finland 6th
• Netherlands 8th
• Norway 9th
• Germany 12th
• Austria 14th
• Ireland 15th
• Belgium 17th
• France 19th
• Spain 23rd
• Italy 24th
• Portugal 25th
• Estonia 26th
• Slovenia 27th
• Greece 28th
• Czech republic 29th
• Hungary 30th
• Poland 32nd
• Slovakia 34th
• Latvia 37th
• Lithuania 40th
• Bulgaria 42nd
• Turkey 43rd
• Romania 47th
• Russia 52nd
• Ukraine 57th

Economist Intelligence Unit

Quote Media is to sell Dutch search engine Vinden.nl back to its founder

Quote Media has decided to sell both Vinden.nl and Zoeken.nl back to their original founder Jan-Willem Tusveld following a decision that the sector was not their core business, reports Emerce.

Jan-Willem Tusveld founded Vinden.nl in 1998 selling it later to the investment group Reggeborgh - who then sold it to Quote Media. Vinden.nl is currently the fourth search engine in the Netherlands after Google, Ilse and MSN. Mr. Tusveld has said that he would like to take Vinden.nl ahead of Ilse - the leading Dutch-owned search engine.

Zoeken.nl was created a year ago to bring a new concept of 'clustering' meaning that related themes are shown in a list on the left of the page to facilitate the user's search. It has only come out of beta this month.

Online transactions to exceed 10 billion Euros in France in 2005

The ACSEL panel, which brings together the leading e-commerce companies of France with figures then aggregated by Price Waterhouse Coopers, is forecasting a total e-commerce turnover for panel members this year of 10 billion Euros.

Their latest report shows that the 24 members of ACSEL saw an increase of 54.8% in turnover to 671.2 million Euros in the first quarter of 2005 - compared with a year ago. The same quarter clocked up 7.3 million online transactions an increase of 57.8% over last year.

Yahoo's relevancy may be catching Google, says French study

A study carried out by Le Journal du Net has concluded that Google is still ahead of Yahoo and MSN in terms of the relevancy of results presented - but the gap has narrowed between Google and nearest rival, Yahoo, especially in certain specific categories. But MSN still has some catching up to do.

Le Journal du Net examined 25 different scenarios - 15 simple and 10 complex - and then scored the results presented against a defined set of criteria.

The conclusions were that overall, Google remains in the lead, but Yahoo has narrowed the gap by several points in certain categories - particuarly related to commercial searches where JDN actually put Yahoo ahead. On pure information queries, Google remains in control but the study also noted that from the 4th result onwards the quality of the result has declined from the previous study a year ago.

Perhaps the most intriguing comment is that Yahoo's results feature less circular results - in other words pages that give the same information duplicated or lead indirectly back to the same information.

Google wins when it comes to the elimination of 'cloaking' or spam pages - an area in which MSN in particular needs to improve.

Googles sponsored links are also classed as more relevant than the competition's and the best integrated with the natural results.

eBay targets growing internet activity in Poland

eBay has launched its first foray into Eastern Europe targeting Poland, a country with an online population of 10 million internet users representing just 27% of the total population.

It faces stiff competition. Local outfit Allegro, together with several smaller auction sites in the country have a strong position. Reuters UK

Overture and Lycos increase cooperation

Overture and Lycos are to work closer together in Europe, it has been disclosed. Following an agreement which is to run for several years into the future, Lycos will link its portal more closely with Overture in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands using the content match system.

French and Swedes are big online gamblers

Shocking figures from Nielsen//Netratings suggest that online home users in France and Sweden are the biggest gamblers in Europe with both countries seeing reaches of 22.1%. Germany, the UK and Switzerland had a similar reach of 14 - 14.5% - whilst the Italians and Spanish haven't really caught onto the trend to date with reach figures of 7 and 6% respectively.

A major factor in driving this trend seems to be the availability of broadband as the majority of gambling takes place on a fast connection.

Higher levels of local search in Germany than the UK or France

Volker Gläser, search director for Yahoo Deutschland, says that local search is more significant in Germany than the UK or France sometimes reaching levels as high as 30% of all searches. He puts this down largely to the division of the country into "Länder".

In February, Yahoo launched in beta a local search facility across Germany in partnership with local directory 'Das Örliche' to provide locally oriented searches using two search boxes - one for the query, one for the location.

The system is needed to integrate with pay per click provider Overture's local advertising system which already represents 15% of Overture's turnover in the US, according to Isabell Wagner of Overture in Germany.

The Overture local advertising system is due to go live some time during 2005, said Frau Wagner at the search engine strategies conference in Munich. It had been expected earlier.

Seekport to launch in Italy, Spain & Scandinavia by middle 2005

Europe's baby search engine. Seekport from Germany, which already operates in the UK, France and Germany, is to launch Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian operations by this summer. This is rapid progress for a search engine which launched only a year ago with an entirely new index. In other words, it is unusual in that it does not rely on US search engines to provide the database from which to draw its results.

Seekport claims that it will offer better quality to users than the American competitors simply because they are based locally and understand the market place. They claim their results will be of a high quality because they are automatically able to identify poor quality content - with human editors making the final decisioin.

This may be believable for a German or French language search engine with its relatively small index - but in English every attempt to do this has subsequently been quietly withdrawn - including big name players such as MSN and Ask Jeeves. Why don't European search engines leave English to the big players and focus on European languages where they may well be able to offer a better alternative?

As yet unborn search engine Neomo.de is also preparing to launch in Germany - probably during the summer - which means that Europe's largest nation will have two home grown search engines with their own indexes as Neomo is following the example set by Seekport. Neomo has, so far, only suggested that it will be available in German.

Both will draw their pay per click results from existing services - in the case of Seekport this is Espotting, now owned by Find-what. Neomo has not publicly announced who its ppc partner will be.

89% turnover growth for Infospace

Infospace - a search engine which presents the results of others mixed depending on the type of phrase searched for - has seen a 41% increase in unique visitors in its last financial year 2004 and a growth in turnover of 89%.

Wanadoo launches contextual pay per click system in France

Wanadoo has announced a pay per click system for contextual sponsored links on Wanadoo and Mappy which has been nicknamed 'Wanadooclic". The links will be bought via a bidding system. The announcement was made by Luc Tran Thang who is the Director responsible for the Wanadoo portals. It should be noted that Wanadoo already features sponsored links from Overture which will remain - at least for the time being.

The Wanadoo site claims to have gained more than 100,000 visitors during the month of February 2005.

Time spent online is increasing in France, Italy, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain & Germany

Nielsen//NetRatings global netview analysis shows signficant year-on-year increases in the number of hours per month spent online in all European countries monitored. Outside Europe, Hong Hong achieved the highest increase of 25% - whilst the US dropped.

Most impressive are the figures for France (19%) and Italy (15%) where web users have significantly increased their dependence on the www.

The greatest number of hours spent online is in Japan at 14 hours 50 minutes - but second is France with 14 hours 25 minutes - the greatest number of hours of any European country!

February 2005 home use increases in UK, France and Germany

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, active home use of the internet increased quite dramatically in the UK in February2005 to 11% when compared with November 2004 - France and Germany saw smaller increases of 1.6% and 1.2% respectively whilst Sweden dropped by almost 3%.

Ask Jeeves goes Spanish

Ask Jeeves has broadened its multilingual offering by launching a new Spanish index - this will give the organisation - currently negotiating its own acquisition by IAC corporation - to compete more effectively with Google, Yahoo, MSN worldwide. It is not surprising they have chosen Spanish thanks to the growing importance of the online Hispanic population in the US.

Home internet use reaches 61% in Germany

According to German survey organisation Wahlen Online, the number of internet users at home has grown to 61% in the last quarter - a relatively small increase over the previous quarter. Around 34% of the survey respondents access the internet through broadband or DSL whilst 34% are using ISDN - leaving just 26% of German home users on old-fashioned analogue.

68% of the fast access users are online for more than 10 hours per week.

Google first in Italy - but competition is hot

According to figures from Audiweb by Nielsen//NetRatings, Google.it has the greatest reach in Italy of work and home users reaching 57.3%, Libero.it is second at 49.5%, Virgilio.it is third with 48.3% and MSN.it fourth with 36.2%.

This makes Italy once of the hotter locations in the battle for the top slots with Yahoo not making an appearance until 8th position.

Google TV in France?

Of course, it's the first of April and the day of the 'Gros poissons' or April fool in France. Not surprising then that Abondance has announced a new TV channel called Google TV. Could it really happen?

Multilingual search blog launched

Web Certain has launched this multilingual search blog to specifically concentrate on news and issues relating to multilingual search - particularly focusing on Europe!