Google Analytics now recognizes 38 websites as organic search engines!

MoreVisibility - August 21, 2008

Because I am a geek, and because I love to know the innermost, obscure, and technical aspects of everything Google Analytics related, I do a few things from time to time that you may find peculiar:

1. I view the source code of http://www.google.com/analytics because I like to see if Google Analytics engineers make any modifications to the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) on their own website.
2. I create a “fake” custom advanced filter to see if there are any options from the “Field A” or “Field B” fields that have disappeared or have been added (I am NOT paranoid here – try creating a custom advanced filter and open up the Field A or Field B drop-down menu, and you’ll see that there are some options that are not listed [most notably, Visitor IP Address], but they are there if you use your Up and Down cursor keys to navigate the menu instead of your mouse’s scrolling wheel).
3. I like to download the ga.js file from http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js and view the list of organic search engines, to see if they’ve added or removed anything recently.

Did you know, at the time of this post, that Google Analytics automatically recognizes 38 different websites as organic search engines? Did you even know that there were that many out there to begin with? It catches me by surprise almost every time, because there is one search engine that I use 99.9% of the time (bet you can’t guess which one it is), and I forget that there are so many other search engines out there to play with.

So I’ve decided that I’d list and link all of the search engines that Google Analytics automatically recognizes as organic search engines here. Visit some of these if you can – perform a search or two on some of them. Perhaps even see what they are offering as far as advertising solutions are concerned – you’ll be surprised at just how many places you can spend money in online advertising these days 🙂

Here is the full list (Updated: August 21, 2008):

(Note: Finding all of these Search Engines was not as easy as I thought it would be! Thus, there is a chance that a few of these links are incorrect. Please let me know if you find any inaccuracies).

Google – The #1Search Engine in the land.
Yahoo – The Search Engine that put the internet on the map in the early 1990’s.
MSN / Live – Microsoft’s Search Engine (MSN.com and Live.com are the same).
ASK – Formerly ASK Jeeves, headquartered in Oakland, California.
AOL – Formerly America OnLine, currently powered by Google.
Lycos – They have been around for a while. Owned by Daum Communications.
Altavista – Owned by Overture in Sunnyvale, California. Online since 1995.
Netscape – Makers of the popular browser in the 90’s. Now owned by AOL.
CNN – Yes, CNN.com has it’s own search feature! Go check it out.
Looksmart – They have recently changed from Search Engine to Ad Network.
About.com – A great repository of articles and information.
Mamma – The Mother of All Search Engines (Their term, not mine).
All The Web – Powered by Yahoo. Features “Livesearch”, also powered by Yahoo.
Gigablast – Search the Web for pages, images, and videos.
Voila – Popular French Search Engine. Merci bocu!
Virgilio – Popular Italian Search Engine. Powered by Alice. Prego!
Baidu – Popular Chinese Search Engine. (Sorry I can’t do Chinese Characters).
Alice – Roll Your Own Search Engine. Web 2.0 Search.
Yandex – Yandex is a popular Russian Search Engine.
Najdi – Specializs in the Repubic of Macedonia.
Club-Internet – A French Internet Service Provider.
Seznam – Search Engine for the Czech Republic.
Search.com – Owned and Operated by CNET Networks.
WP – Stands for “Wirtualna Polska”, a Polish News / Social Directory.
Onet – Another Polish Internet Portal/ Directory site.
Netsprint – Our Third Polish Search Engine on this list!
Interia – More from Poland, but this one is powered by Google.
Scukacz – Poland is definitely being counted by GA as organic, no doubt about it.
YAM – I am pretty sure this is a Taiwanese Search Engine.
PC Home – A Japanese Web Portal. Owned by CNET.
Kvasir – Search Engine for all of Norway.
Sesam – A Scandinavian Search Engine / Web Portal.
OZU – An Internet Directory from Spain.
Terra – From the USA, but written in all Spanish.
Nostrum – On the list but I cannot find a reliable URL!
Mynet – Mynet is a specialized engine for the Turkish Language.
Ekolay – I believe that Ekolay is also Turkish.
Ilse – Search Engine in the Netherlands.