New Arab search engine to challenge Google

Quote from cnn.com;

New Arab search engine to challenge Google

Thursday, April 27, 2006 Posted: 0843 GMT (1643 HKT)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) -- A Saudi-German plan to launch a dedicated Arabic language search engine for the Web could revolutionize the moribund Arabic Internet market, a senior official in the project said.

"Sawafi", planned for the last quarter of 2006, could also set a tough challenge for international search giants such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, which offer a basic Arabic search facility at present.

"There is no (full) Arabic Internet search engine on the market. You find so-called search engines, but they involve a directory search, not a local search. There's nothing available for overall Internet search," Hermann Havermann, managing director of German Internet tech firm Seekport, told Reuters.

"If you look at the international search engines, their functionality is non-existent. This market really lacks the support of an Arabic search engine," he said.

Seekport unveiled the project with Saudi partner Integrated Technical Solutions in Riyadh this week. The company, Sawafi, is registered in the Gulf Arab business hub of Dubai.

Sawafi is hoping to copy the success of local Chinese language search engine Baidu, which has made huge strides in a market with over 100 million Web surfers.

Everything is to play for in the Arab world of 280 million people, where Internet penetration is low. There are also large expatriate Arab communities in Europe and North America.

"There are only 100 million Web pages right now in Arabic, and that's nothing. It's only 0.2 percent of the total worldwide," Havermann said.

Research commissioned from Dubai-based Internet researcher Madar shows the number of Arabic Internet users could jump to 43 million in 2008 from 16 million in 2004, Havermann said.

According to Madar, 65 percent of Arab Internet users in 2005 could not read English, which accounts for 70 percent of the material on the Internet.

Better search engines are key to a turnaround.

"There is not enough Arabic content available on the Internet. But there's no motivation to put more Arabic content on the Internet as long as you don't have a system to find the content," Havermann said.

Saudi Arabia, with an affluent population of 24 million, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates would be key places for winning online advertising to fuel Arabic search engines.

"Search engines are dependent on income from advertising, and for this you need partners and marketing agencies. They are in Dubai," Havermann said. "On the other side, the Arabic user market is in Saudi Arabia."

The Arabic online advertising market could grow to $150 million in 2008 from $10 million at present, he said.

 

I also heard that the French and German government are bankrolling some Google killer... supposed to be really advanced.... but I guess we'll see what happens.

 

Interesting

 

Funny, theres always some "Google Killer" popping up, then they just seem fade away after all the hype...

 

That isn't true. What they are really bank rolling is European search technology (or funneling money, however you want to see it).

Good post on it: http://battellemedia.com/archives/002521.php

 

If you want to kill google, it wont help to be just better, you need to be a hell a lot better.

 

Why would you want to kill Google? Are they the new Microsoft?

 

This is not about killing google but this is a constant attempt by evryone to do something better.

Altavista used to be a popular search engine and now it is not. So we can not predict what is the future of google.

But yes being here, we must be strong enought to stay ahead in whatever search engine we see is popular.

 

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I doubt it will challenge Google because of the language. English is the international business language after all, not german or arabic.

 

you don't get it, primeryder.

It's meant for the Arabic-speaking people. This means millions will shift from Google, (no arabs use google or msn, thats a fact, i am arabian), and go to the Arabic search engine.

This will be interesting. We'll just have to see.

 

They're funding it because the results europeans get from google aren't always as relevant as they would like them to be.

 

lol... why do you use internet then ? use arabnet...

 

haha i meant Yahoo or MSN...they do use Google. But you get the point.

 

Even i dont speak any arabic for sure i believe that is logical for someone to use his native language and service instead of sth else

 

hmmm interesting...thanks for sharing...

 

I have seen 101 search engines like this challenging google.. where are they now ?

..:: peace ::..
Jeba

 

Bankrupt, probably.

 

im arabian and use just google and yahoo

 

I think other SE can challange Google only when big G starts going back for itself. There's to much to catch up, maybe if all other SE can somehow unite something is going to happen, but maybe even then not.