Australian search engines and directories

If you're looking specifically for Australian information, many of the top US search tools now offer regional versions of their services, allowing restricted searching within a country's websites.

Search engines

Australia is currently covered by regional versions of the main global search engines - Google,, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search - as well as versions of the older US search tools, such as AltaVista which is now rarely used, or AOL Search which uses Google search results.

Genuine search engines developed in Australia are few and far between. They are often mostly run by software companies as a showpiece of their technology, yet struggle in the face of the big US search engines, both in terms of brand name, accuracy and size of index. A few useful search engines are:

• Ansearch - launched at the end of 2004, the Ansearch site offers tabbed search options and displays results from its own database as well as sponsored results from Yahoo! Search Marketing.
• Anzwers - a well-established search engine and portal service which is owned by Ansearch and generates its own search results plus sponsored listings from Google.
• Sensis - the most prominent Australian search engine, owned by Telstra and backed by extensive advertising. Sensis offers its own search database and sponsored listings, although these are also supplemented by Google and Yahoo! PPC adverts.
• WebWombat - another well-established search tool which is now more of a portal service, offering web search listings and sponsored results from Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Directories

Most of the 'home-grown' search tools that only cover Australian websites tend to be compiled directories and these vary in their depth and quality of information. There are few genuinely useful Australian directories covering a broad range of subjects and websites, but the most notable site is:

• Ezilon - a broad directory based on Open Directory listings and including sponsored results from Google AdWords.

Finally, one issue often overlooked by Australian websites is the use of a .com.au domain name as several key search engines will only list sites using this domain within Australian-specific searches. Therefore if you are targeting the Australian market it will be important to not just restrict your website to a .com domain name, but have a .com.au site available for indexing as well, or in some cases having the site hosted on an Australian server will also be important.

To find out how your website can achieve a top ranking on these Australian search engines by contact us for more information or to request a FREE website assessment.