SearchZa, South Africa Search Engine Launched

**rich_ord** · #1 (**permalink**) 11-11-2004, 12:06 PM

Below is iEntry's press release announcing the launch of SearchZA. As many of you know, iEntry is the parent company of WebProWorld ...

SearchZa, South Africa Search Engine Launched By iEntry

LEXINGTON, KY. -- Nov. 11, 2004 -- iEntry Inc., top rated eBusiness publisher, announced today SearchZA, a search engine for South Africa. SearchZa is the most comprehensive search engine for .ZA domains.

SearchZA utilizes a revolutionary concept in search. The SearchZA Search Engine provides only one result per website … but, every result links to a Content Profile with organized links to all key internal pages within that site. SearchZA is designed to make searching South Africa faster and more efficient.

"Our goal is for SearchZA to become the most popular search engine in the world focused on South Africa," said Rich Ord, President and CEO of iEntry, Inc. "SearchZA fills a need in South Africa for a comprehensive directory of .ZA sites that is not being met by Google and Yahoo.”

SearchZA.com is designed not only for South Africans but for people around the world to search all of South Africa’s websites.

Submission to SearchZA for indexing and inclusion is completely free for all .ZA domains: http://submit.searchza.com/

About iEntry. Inc.
iEntry, Inc. (http://www.ientry.com/), headquartered in Lexington, KY, is a leading eBusiness publisher providing highly informative websites and email newsletters for CXO's, web developers, IT professionals and small business owners. iEntry properties include more than 50 Web sites and over 70 e-mail newsletters that are viewed by over 5 million users and generate approximately 50 million email/page views monthly. iEntry also includes the popular Jayde.com B2B search engine.

General Contact:
Mike McDonald
Search Engine Manager
859-514-2720
mmcdonald@ientry.com

Advertising Contact:
Susan Coppersmith
Directory of Advertising
859-514-2720
susan@ientry.com

Click here to subscribe to the SearchZA email newsletter.

cbp · #2 (**permalink**) 11-11-2004, 04:53 PM

Timely...
Just yesterday I was looking for some very specific South Africa info, so went to http://www.google.co.za/ - unlike other regional Google's they do no have the option "pages from <region>" ....

Quote:

SearchZa is the most comprehensive search engine for .ZA domains

Will it just search .ZA domains or South Africa IP addresses as well? I know a couple of good SA sites that are .com

CBP

Tubby · #3 (**permalink**) 11-11-2004, 08:07 PM

Is it worth trying to submit ? Knowing iEntry the chances are If I attempted to list one of my pages
- Chevrolets for sale in South Africa -
http://restored-classics.com/cars/ch...th-africa.html

I would probably be told that they do not accept non main entry pages.

Why wouldn't somebody just enter "Chevrolets for sale in South Africa" into google, or yahoo.

espectations · #4 (**permalink**) 11-12-2004, 05:24 AM

Great! Thanks iEntry. I live and work in South Africa and the search engines and directories here are pathetic.

Relevancy on searches as far as I am concerned does not exist so hopefully with iEntry launching search.za things might improve.

Just one word - most people here use either Google or Yahoo - not sure if it is just a marketing issue or customer education.

But I am sure the marketing people at iEntry took a look into that.

Our country is still a bit behind - most are still on dial-up even though Telkom launched ADSL a while ago - costing an arm and a leg if you want speed of course.

Hopefully with the second operator things will improve as we hope for a bit of competition. 43% of the country is unemployed so I doubt that this 43% will have access to computers.

Anyway, I guess iEntry also took that into consideration.

Our bandwidth is restricted and cost so much that people like me are moving all sites offshore.

Copper cables get stolen and ISP's go down......and we loose business so I decided besides the fact that hosting is so cheap in North America, at least my sites and those of my clients will be up and running.

Maybe International companies launching South African searches will be a wake-up call for the locals - there are a couple of local companies that dominated the market way too much for quite some time.

Change is always good and I will keep an eye out for this one.

shandy · #5 (**permalink**) 11-12-2004, 05:51 AM

Hi Rich,
congratulations to the launch - well done, SA can do with some mention in the international playing field.
Unfortunately the search engine is for 'South Africa' rather then southern Africa.
My site sells safaris in Botswana and as with so many other submitt sites one has to put in a zip code, which don't exist in so many countries. The site is hosted in Europe for reasons meantioned in an earlier reply.
There isn't much emphasis on travel and tourism in your categories. In fact on the home page there isn't even a category for travel and tourism at all. Eventualy one finds it under 'Retail Industry'. For a country/region that has a huge tourism industry surely it deserves an independet category?
Maybe you could sort it by:
adventure travel
safaris
safari lodges and camps
game reserves
tour operators
etc

Cheers and good luck!
---------------------
http://www.safaris-botswana.com