Dave Naffziger's Blog

I’ve pulled together a list of countries that Google has entered where Yahoo hasn’t. I chose those countries where Google resolves a country-specific domain in that country’s native language and Yahoo doesn’t. I also chose to limit my analysis to the countries recognized by ISO 3166 (those that IANA has established ccTLDs for).

Yes, it is far easier for Google to launch their home page in another country than for Yahoo to launch their homepage. However, making search available and customized for each country begins the long process of brand establishment. I noticed it in Peru and again in the Czech Republic – they know and love Google. They don’t know Yahoo.

Here’s a look at their addressable search markets:

Google reaches a population 40% larger than Yahoo’s and an Internet user base 20% larger. This Internet user base is also growing faster than Yahoo’s user base. Google’s approach bears itself out in their financials. % non-US (International) Revenue:

The list of countries where you can Google but you can’t Yahoo:

Country – # Internet Users
Turkey – 16M
Poland – 11M
Pakistan – 11M
Portugal – 8M
Chile – 7M
Ukraine – 5M
Belgium – 5M
Czech Republic – 51M
South Africa – 5M
Egypt – 5M
Nigeria – 5M
Romania – 5M
Colombia – 5M
Morocco – 5M
Peru – 5M
Israel – 4M
Belarus – 4M
New Zealand – 3M
Hungary – 3M
Venezuela – 3M
Saudi Arabia – 2M
Slovakia – 2M
Bulgaria – 2M
Ireland – 2M
Serbia & Montenegro – 1.5M
Croatia – 1.5M
United Arab Emirates – 1.4M
Lithuania – 1.2M
Slovenia – 1.1M
Jamaica – 1.1M
Kenya – 1.1M
Latvia – 1M
Costa Rica – 1M
Puerto Rico – 1M
Zimbabwe – 1M
Tunisia – 1M
Dominican Republic – 0.9M
Uzbekistan – 0.9M
Bosnia-Herzegovina – 0.8M
Guatemala – 0.8M
Estonia – 0.7M
Uruguay – 0.7M
Azerbaijan – 0.7M
El Salvador – 0.6M
Jordan – 0.6M
Ecuador – 0.6M
Senegal – 0.5M
Haiti – 0.5M
Uganda – 0.5M
Bolivia – 0.5M
Moldova – 0.4M
Ghana – 0.4M
Kazakhstan – 0.4M
Luxembourg – 0.3M
Bangladesh – 0.3M
Panama – 0.3M
Kyrgystan – 0.3M
Sri Lanka – 0.3M
Mongolia – 0.3M
Iceland – 0.3M
Oman – 0.2M
Zambia – 0.2M
Honduras – 0.2M
Libya – 0.2M
Paraguay – 0.2M
Cuba – 0.2M
Mauritius – 0.2M
Georgia – 0.2M
Nepal – 0.2M
Qatar – 0.2M
Cote d’Ivoire – 0.2M
Guyana – 0.2M
Trinidad & Tobago – 0.2M
Bahrain – 0.2M
Armenia – 0.2M
Congo, Dem. Rep. – 0.1M
Nicaragua – 0.1M
Malta – 0.1M
Ethiopia – 0.1M
Bahamas – 0.1M
Guadeloupe – 0.1M
Namibia – 0.1M
Fiji – 0.1M
Botswana – 0.1M
Brunei Darussalem – 0.1M
Malawi – 0.1M
Gambia – 49K
Lesotho – 43K
Cambodia – 41K
French Guiana (FR) – 38K
Greenland – 38K
Rwanda – 38K
Congo – 36K
Guernsey & Alderney – 36K
Turkmenistan – 36K
Belize – 35K
Afganistan – 30K
Suriname – 30K
Virgin Islands (US) – 30K
Jersey – 27K
Burundi – 25K
Laos – 25K
Dominica – 201K
Antigua & Barbuda – 20K
Liechtenstein – 20K
Sao Tome & Principe – 20K
Seychelles – 20K
Grenada – 19K
Maldives – 19K
San Marino – 14K
Micronesia – 14K
Djibouti – 9K
Solomon Islands – 8K
St. Vincent & the Grenadines – 8K
Vanuatu – 8K
Gibraltar – 6K
Samoa – 6K
Tajikistan – 5K
British Virgin Islands – 4K
Cook Islands – 4K
Anguilla – 3K
Tonga – 3K
Kiribati – 2K
East Timor – 1K
Saint Helena (UK) – 1K
Norfolk Island – 0.7K
Niue – 0.5K
Nauru – 0.3K
American Samoa – –
Man, Isle of – –
Mayotte (FR) – –
Monserrat – –
Pitcairn Islands – –
Tokelau – –

A few other interesting tidbits.

• Most interesting Google domain: google.off.ai
• Domain squatters. Google owns google.com.ua (ukraine) and google.com.vc (st vincent and the grenadines), but not google.ua and google.vc. Google also doesn’t own google.cm – which could be a typo for google.com.
• Biggest countries (by Internet users) without Google: Iran (7.5M), Sudan (2,8M), Algeria (1.9M), Syria (800K)

I used internet user statistics from http://www.internetworldstats.com.

As always, its easy to miss things. Please let me know if I missed something.

And a few related posts:

• American Idol is in the Czech Republic Before Yahoo
• Google, Yahoo and IP Geolocation

I continue to think about the fact that Google is in the Czech market before Yahoo. I wonder how many other countries this is true for?

Fundamentally, I believe this is due to the fact that search is core for Google, but it isn’t core for Yahoo – content is. Related to the “peanut butter” problem, the barriers for localizing all of Yahoo’s content are tremendous, but it is far easier for Google to make its core search and adwords available in a new language. Just imagine trying to transalate http://www.yahoo.com and http://www.google.com. You’ll quickly be able to see how much harder Yahoo’s job is.

Google began licensing IP geolocation technology over 6 years ago. The most visible use of this technology is the country level redirects they do (visitors to Google.com from the Czech Republic are automatically redirected to google.cz). However, the technology enables a number of other critical components of Google’s business:

• Search anywhere. Not only can you send users to a localized version, but you can figure out where servers are hosted, helping to match users with content relevant to them and their country.
• Adwords anywhere. You can buy keywords in any country (and in most major cities). Since Google is easily able to customize search for any country they can also sell adds in any country (payment options obviously being one of the most major hurdles)
• Adsense anywhere. Because Google can distinguish the country of visitors (and has ad inventory), Google can accept publishers that receive traffic from anywhere. Seriously, how absurd is it that YPN is only accepting publishers that receive US traffic?

Panama is Yahoo’s first step towards utilizing IP geolocation technologies, but this is all in the Overture division. I suspect that Yahoo is far from integrating these technologies into its search core. Yahoo had better get moving – 6 years is a lot of time to make up.