Hungarian Search Engine Market Overview

I have been regularly evaluating the performance of different search engines on the Hungarian web for almost two years. This is a summary of the latest comparison made January, 2005.

Introduction of the compared engines

The big engines:

• Google search results can be restricted to pages in Hungarian and Google offers a partly translated interface in Hungarian, and this interface can be chosen at their Romanian and Slovakian localised versions too. (Both countries have significant Hungarian minorities.) Further pages like the About Google section are not translated, and often the quality of the translations seems to be rather unprofessional. Also some new features tend to be rolled out later here than on the .com version. Apart from the basic Web Search Google Inc offers few other services in Hungarian: AdWords, AdSense, Gmail, and Internet Explorer version of Google Toolbar. Google most likely has some servers in Budapest, and they have a subsidiary, but obviously without any considerable business activity.
  
• MSN Search has a Hungarian interface and the results can be restricted to Hungarian too, but this version doesn't operate on a separate domain name, and search.msn.com just shows up with English interface even if you visit the page with a Hungarian Internet Explorer or you get there using the search box on microsoft.hu... Of course there are a bunch of localized Microsoft products, they have even a headquarters in Budapest.
  
• Yahoo! allows you to restrict the results to Hungarian pages, but if you would like access their database using a Hungarian interface, you will have to visit vizsla24.hu (see below). Yahoo.hu is owned by Yahoo! Inc., but redirects to the central homepage. Currently none of their services is offered in Hungarian.


• ( Ask Jeeves offers its services only in some Western-European languages, and the results can be restricted only to those few languages.)

The local players:

• vizsla24.hu is powered by Yahoo! Search technology but. This service is linked to the biggest portal under the .hu domain: origo.hu


• zoohoo.hu shows results gathered by Jyxobot, the fourth most active search engine robot on the Hungarian web. This Czech technology called Jyxo powers some other Czech and Slovakian search engines too.
  


• kurzor.hu is powered by a proprietary search technology and the popularity of this engine is partly based on the fact that google.hu is redirected to this address.


• keres.sztaki.hu is developed by an academic research institute and its most innovative feature is a sophisticated stemming technology which recognises the different inflected forms ot the given keywords. (Would be a key feature for all engines, since Hungarian is an agglutinating language.)
  


• heureka.hu is the oldest of all Hungarian search engines, and a considerable percentage of its user base consists of the faithful users who started to use this service in the old days.
  

Database size examined using frequent words

I have searched for the 20 most frequently used Hungarian words on the net. These words aren't stopwords for most (international) search engines so summarising the displayed number of results we can figure out which engine has the most Hungarian pages indexed. (These values aren't exact, and in the case of internetional engines they can contain pages written in other languages, since their language recognition algos are far from perfect.) The graph below shows that Yahoo! claims to have the most pages, almost twice as Google. MSN 's performance is not so outstanding compared to the other regional search engines. (Note that Heureka did consider stopwords some of the keywords used.)

Great deals on Republic Hungarian! Shop on eBay and save!

I have just spotted this funny ad on my site:

Republic Hungarian
"Great deals on Republic Hungarian! Shop on eBay and Save!"

Which Hungarian Search Engines are Used the Most

This graph was a result of an analysis I made a few months ago: it shows the number of referrers by search engines and directories based on the results of 26 randomly selected publicly available web statistics in August, 2005 .

It is obvious how Google (google.co.hu) outperformed all of its rivals, and also interesting that the organic referrers from the other three Big Engines (Yahoo!, MSN Search, Ask Jeeves) were virtually nowhere.

The second place was taken by startlap.hu pages, which is not a search engine but a conglomerate of one-page subdomains with topic based link collections. The suprisingly high traffic coming from these sites reflects the usability of this system.

The third place was occupied by kurzor.hu, but this also has to do something with Google's popularity, as you might have readed about it.

The last perceptible bar on this diagram belongs to vizsla24.hu, which is the search engine of Hungary's biggest portal: [origo].

To sum it up: Google is far the most popular search engine when it comes to searching among Hungarian sites. Practically nobody uses MSN Search (which has Hungarian interface, and searches can be restricted to Hungarian) and Yahoo! Search (without translated interface but restrictable searches) , while Ask Jeeves is unknown here. The user base of the regional engines is also small, and the only Hungarian site with big influence on referrals is a link collection.

Another interesting aspect is that there are three search engines who continously make a lot of efforts to crawl and index the Hungarian web without any substantial benefit: Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, and Jyxo. These three robots frequently visit Hungarian sites, but basically nobody retrieves the data collected by them. Yahoo! Search sold its service to a regional site at least, MSN Search could quickly become popular thanks to its omnipotent owner: Microsoft, but zoohoo.hu, --the only Hungarian site where Jyxo's data is used-- will most likely remain an (undeservedly) unknown site.

When will we have Web 2.0 apps in other languages?

Internationalisation and Web 2.0

Having checked the list mentioned in my previous post I was wondering:
Hungarians form only a small user base, so it's obvious that there won't be so much software developed for them (in the beginnings, at least), but frankly I was surprised that none of the listed applications had been localized so far (As far as I know, the only exception is Gmail: its interface is available in 38 languages.)
For instance take del.icio.us: it has the simplest user interface ever, so most likely there are only a few messages, strings to translate. I can' really catch why haven't they already done that? The lack of internationalization reduces the userbase dramatically, on the other hand gives opportunities for non-english developers to create clone sites, like http://icio.de . Ok, this site contains only 3500 bookmarks at the time of writing, but it can gain a huge user base quickly.

Anyway the words like l10n and i18n (localisation and internationalisation) are desperately missing from the dictionary of web 2.0 enthusiastics and evangelists. I guess I will have to think about it a bit more so as to figure out, why is this so, but one thing is for sure: there are a lot of opportunities in this field with huge expectations: recent research shows that approximately only 16% of Hungarians speak English, an other 17% speak German. Not all countries have so miserable statistics when it comes to foreign languages, but this example clearly shows that there are a lot of users who cannot access web 2.0 thus they are condemned to keep on using web 1.0...

Complete List of Hungarian Web 2.0 Applications

Unfortunately I don't have to work so much to compile a comprehensive list of Hungarian Web 2.0 sites (aka. web 2.0 under the .hu domain...) similar to Rian's impressive list, so here you are:

Blogter.hu

blogter.hu is basically a blog farm, but all of the hosted blogs are organized at a higher level than the usual: The main page features hand-picked blogs and blog entries, and the power of the tagged blog posts is also exploited not only on the blogger's own site, but on blogtér's (literal translation is blogspace) main page helping to access hosted content by tagging. In fact this is rather a web-site than an application, but up to know this is the only thing that I could enumerate.

So, that's all folks... As far as I know a Hungarian del.icio.us clone is also on it's way, but the release date is not known yet (a few months ago it was anticipated to this January)

About www.google.hu

Update: Google Inc. acquires google.hu

No, http://www.google.hu does not belong to Google Inc., neither to its Hungarian subsidiary, Google Számítástechnikai Szolgáltató Kft.
Google Inc. was not quick enough (or simply didn't care) to claim this domain name way back in 2000 when the .hu ccTLD liberalisation took place. Since then this name had been owned by many. It landed at Hírek Média és Internet Technológia Kft. in 2003. This company used this address to provide web search service based on Google search results until this May, when they deployed their own proprietary engine which provides surpisingly good results. So this address nowadays redirects to http://kurzor.hu, which is a quite usable Hungarian web search engine. Many surfers don't even realize that they are using an other service than Google's, although the user interface of kurzor.hu does not resemble the famous design made in Mountain View, CA. (Using the .co.hu TLD is not as usual as in th UK or in Yugoslavia for instance.) If you check out the Hungarian pages Google has indexed, you will see 122 000 mentions of google.hu which is a huge number if you consider that the "real" URL - http://google.co.hu - is mentioned on 655 000 web pages altogether. Nevertheless this domain has not been banned, it appears as the second page right after google.co.hu, if you seek for "google" restricting the search to Hungarian pages. (which is considered highly competitive under the .hu domain too)

AdSense for Content International

So far I know what happens if the system cannot display targeted ads in context with the content of a page written in English, Spanish, Czech and Hungarian. As far as I could see English pages display non-profit organization ads, while in other languages Google does a kind of self-advertisement: Different quiz like questions are displayed and linked to specific Google query. So the visitor lands on an informative Search Engine Result Page which has the answer for the question. Thus Google promotes the vanilla Google Web Search feature, and manifests how useful tool a search engine can be (instead of showing ads of local NGOs). All in all it' obvious that this feature in other languages is not the same as defined here.

If you know the right keywords you can push a snippet of your page to these SERPs, thus getting a few extra visitors. That's the reason why these questions can be interesting for webmasters too, even if PSAs don't pay for CTR.

The AdSense for Content is available for webpages written in the following languages, so I will have to seek for some more PSAs to make this collection complete. Stay tuned or comment this post if you have spotted PSAs in other languages!

• Chinese (simplyfied)
• Chinese (traditional)
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Norvegian
• Polish
• Portugal
• Russian
• Slovakian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Turkish

Datos curiosos Google - Spanish Public Service Ads

The following AdSense Public Service Advertisements appear on a Spanish site if Google cannot deliver appropriate ads. Note that these type of ads are called: approx. "Interesting Google Data" The corresponding search queries are listed in bold, after the English translation.

¿Quiere saber quién inventó el papel? Google tiene la respuesta.

Do You want to know who invented the paper? Google has the answer. - inventor del papel

¿Quiere saber dónde se producen las células rojas?

Do You want to know where are the red blood cells produced? - celulas rojas produccion

¿Por qué el cielo es azul? Lo que siempre ha querido saber. En Google encontrara la respuesta.

Why is the sky blue? What you always wanted to knod. You will find the answer with Google. - porque cielo es azul

¿Sabe qué ciudad es la capital de Sicilia? La respuesta a solo un clic.

Do You know which city is the capital of Sicily? The answer is only a click away. - capital de sicilia

¿Quiere saber qué profundidad tiene el océano? El Google tiene la respuesta.

Do You want to know what is the depth of the ocean? Google has the answer. - profundidad del oceano

¿Cómo murió Cleopatra? Una pregunta que quiere resolver. Google tiene la respuesta.

How did Cleopatra die? A mystery you want to solve. Google has the answer. - como murio cleopatra

¿Quiere saber cuál es la estrella más cercana? La respuesta a solo un clic.

Do You want to know which is the closest star? The answer is only a click away. - estrella mas cercana

¿Quiere saber cuál es la temperatura del sol? En Google encontrará la respuesta.

Do You want to know what is the temperature of the Sun? You will find the answer with Google. - que temperatura tiene el sol

¿Sabe en que época aparecieron los dinosaurios? En Google encontrará la respuesta.

Do You know in which period did the dinosaurs appear? You will find the answer with Google. - epoca de dinosaurios

¿Quién fue el segundo hombre en llegar a la luna? La respuesta a solo un clic.

Who was the second man on the Moon? The answer is only a click away. - el segundo hombre en la luna

Czech PSAs: Nekomerční reklamy Google.

These are the Public Service Ad "quiz questions" I spotted on my site despite that it was a Hungarian site, and Hungarian has nothing common with Czech language. The translations are rather rough, since I don't speak this language, but some Croatian knowledge and Image Search helped to figure out what these questions were about.

Kdo vynalezl papír?

Who invented the paper?

Proč je obloha modrá? Google Vám najde odpověd'.

Why is the sky blue?

Kdo byl první člověk ve vesmíru? Google to ví přesně. Klikněte a dovíte se odpověd'.

Who was the first man in Space?

Co je "fotosyntéza" ?

What is photosynthesis?

Jak se jmenuje hlavní město USA?

What is the capital of the USA?

Kdo objevil Ameriku? Vyhledejte odpověd' na Google.

Who discovered Amerika?

Jak se jmenuje české národní jídlo? Rychlou odpověd' najdete na Google.

What is the national speciality of the Czech cuisine?

Kdo byla "Marie Terezie"? Klikněte a najděte odpověd' na Google.

Who was Maria Theresa?

Který je největší ostrov světa? Vyhledejte odpověd' na Google.

Which is the biggest island on Earth?

Který je nejlidnatější stát ma světe? najděte odpověd' na Google.

Which is the most populated state of the World?

Kdo napsal knihu "Malý princ"? Odpověd' je na Google.

Who wrote the book "The Little Prince"?

Kdo napsal román "Dobrý voják Švejk"? Google to ví. Klikněte a dovíte se odpověd'.

Who wrote the novel "The Good Soldier Svejk" ?

Co znamená "panta rei"? Google to ví. Klikněte a dovíte se odpověd'.

What does "panta rei" mean?

Kdo vynalezl žárovku? Odpověd' je na Google.

Who invented the light bulb?

Jak se jmenuje nejvyšší vrchol světa? Nejvyšší vrchol světa je... Najdête odpověd' na Google

What is the highest mountain peak of the World?

Kdo byl prvnim československým prezidentem? Google Vám vyhledá odpověd'.

Who was the first president of Czechoslovakia?

Public Service Ads in Hungarian

The following quiz-like questions appear on Hungarian websites as Google AdSense Public Service Advertisements. The search queries associated to these ads are also included. There are only a few sites optimised for these keywords though (at time of writing), so the SERPs for these quieries are not polluted as for the Spanish equivalents for instance.

Ki találta fel a papírt?

• Who invented the paper? - papír feltalálása

Ki volt a második ember a holdon?

• Who was the second man on the Moon? - "második ember" a holdon

Honnan ered a csokoládé?

• Where did chocolate originate? - csokoládé eredete

A létező legnagyobb szám Létezik ilyen? A Google megkeresi Önnek a választ.

• The biggest number. Does it exist? Google finds you the answer. - "a létező legnagyobb szám"

Hol van Timbuktu?

• Where is Timbuktu? - timbuktu

Hol él a varrómadár? És miért hívják így?

• Where does the ashy tailorbird live? And why is it called like this? - varrómadár

Ki volt Vuk hangja a rajzfilmen?

• Who was the voice of Vuk for the cartoon? - vuk magyar hangja

Miért kék az ég?

• Why is the sky blue? - miért kék az ég

Milyen régi a legősibb dinoszauruszlelet?

• How old is the earliest dinosaur fossil? - legrégebbi dinoszaurusz

Mikor készült az első Guiness-rekordok könyve?

• When was the first Guiness Book of Records published? - Guiness féle rekordok

Mi a legközelebbi csillag?

• What is the closest star? - földhöz legközelebbi csillag?

Carcharodon carcharias Melyik állat neve ez?

• Carcharodon carcharias Which animal is this? - állat Carcharodon carcharias

Milyen hőmérsékletű a nap?

• What is the temperature of the Sun? - mennyi a nap hőmérséklete Celsius

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