Russian search giant Yandex took yet another step towards international expansion yesterday, announcing that Seznam.cz, the largest web search engine and information portal in the Czech Republic, had launched a video search service using its technology.
The Seznam service – still in beta testing – is based on the same technology as Yandex.Video, the Yandex video search technology for the Russian speaking audience. The Czech version, however, has algorithms based on the Czech language and takes into account the Czech grammatical structure, Yandex explains.
Czech users can search for videos both on the Czech internet – the service searches on more than 200 local video resources – as well as across the entire web. They will also soon be able to automatically correct spelling mistakes and typos in their search queries using the service.
“Yandex and Seznam first met ten years ago and have stayed in touch, sharing our experiences,” said Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh. “Our companies have a lot in common. Like Yandex, Seznam is the leader in its home market, despite the presence of major global players.”
Seznam.cz currently holds approximately 50% of the Czech search market, just ahed of Google, according to Toplist.cz. Every day, about three million web users visit Seznam.cz, with over 5% of all queries on portal related to video search.
