1. Google vs. NAVER

Most Koreans use NAVER which is the most popular search engine in Korea every day. As one Korean who just moved to Google recently, I wonder why Google cannot knock out NAVER until now, even though it is the most used search engine in the world.

Let's compare both.
At first, what do you thinkg of first apprearance of both sites?

VS.

Google: simple and clean, only shows neccessary links
NAVER: complicated, full of links, flash advertisements, lots of commercial

What about after searching?

VS.



Google: simple, no images, webpages in most matched order on the right side, word ads on the right side
NAVER: sponsor links at the top results, results from various source('knowledge in', blog, web sites, books, cafe, video, webpage)





Moreover, Google has an interesting function which is called 'gadget'. You can customize Google's main page as you want by adding gadgets. This is my main page of Google. I add many news gadgets because I would like to see many kinds of news from several internet news sites.


If you are the user who wants to find results in good quality at a short time, it seems that you better use Google.

Many people who know Google say that Google's success came from their core process called page rank and the simple search results without disturbing commercial. Why doesn't it apply to Korean users ? I searched and thought of some reasons.

First, there is no fun in Google. You can see only relevant results and word adds. Do you know what Google really want from their users? They want to help their users to get the most matched results and make them leave as soon as possible. You may see that their speed of searching webpages is top-notch.

On the other hand, you might spend more time than you thought you would in NAVER. Sometimes, you try to search some information at first, but later you are searching or enjoying something unrelated things there. NAVER want to bind their users to their site by posting interesting commercial and fun things. I think we are too adjusted to use NAVER. NAVER's function is more than searching. It functions as a big entertainment community.



The weird thing is that I still feel more comfortable to use NAVER than Google even though when I just want to get results of good qulity, not for fun. When I search some information, NAVER offers more various and matched information than Google does. It comes from the difference of the principle of Google and NAVER. Google allows other search engines to search and collect search results from all the webpages they have. On the other hand, NAVER does not. They block those approach from other search engines by using 'ROBOT.txt'. That is the reason the results are sometimes poor comparing with NAVER when Koreans search in Google.

Somepeople condemn NAVER with that reason. However, I think it is one of their strategies to keep their users and market share. If NAVER allow Google to collect search results from their site, it will be a hard game to them unless they make innovative strategies to fight enough.


This is NAVER's Google version.




The search result is simple and clear like Google's. Does it seem to easy to copy of Google's strategy? No, I don't think so. Simple and clear webpage is not Google's only strength. NAVER's Google version seems to say that they are checking Google's growth in Korean market.

Anyway, I am personally cheering Google because I like their culture and vision. At the same time, I also want to cheer NAVER because it will be more beneficial to users in terms of competition. / posted by 20500580 Ji-Yeon Jeong