Google Now #1 Search Engine In Czech Republic; 5 Countries To Go For Global Domination

Google has just become the number one search engine in the Czech Republic, leaving only five countries on earth where it’s not the most popular site for searching the web.

According to Toplist, a web measurement service, Google’s aggregate share inside the Czech Republic was 47.2% between January 4 and January 12 (yesterday). That’s a combination of searches done on Google.cz, Google.sk, and other Google engines used inside the country. It beats the aggregate share of Seznam.cz and two other Seznam sites, which had 45.5% share during the same week.

(chart source and Google translation)

It’s worth noting that the market share numbers that Toplist reports for the Czech Republic aren’t based on searches performed, but on the percentage of clicks that each search engine sends to the web sites that it monitors.

Where Isn’t Google The #1 Search Engine?

The Czech Republic was one of six countries where Google wasn’t the dominant search engine. ComScore doesn’t report on the Czech Republic, but the company tells us that, in the 40 or so countries where it does report, Google has less than 50% market share in these countries:

• Russia (where Yandex is #1)
• Japan (Yahoo)
• China (Baidu)
• Taiwan (Yahoo)
• South Korea (Naver)

ComScore also says Google is not number one in Hong Kong, which is technically not a separate country from China, so we won’t include it on the list. (Plus, other measuring services do report Google as number one Hong Kong.)

How Did Google Win The Czech Republic?

According to Czech news reports, Google was far behind Seznam at the beginning of 2010 — about 20% behind. So what changed?

TV advertising, apparently.

In August, Google Czech Republic launched a major TV ad campaign with a commercial spot that should look familiar:

It looks like a Czech version of the “Parisian Love” ad that Google ran during the Super Bowl earlier last year. And I believe the tagline at the end says, “Life is a search.”

(thanks to Istvan T. for assistance)

Postscript, January 17: See our additional coverage of this story in this new article, Seznam.cz Disputes Google’s No. 1 Ranking In Czech Republic.