If you travel to Seoul, South Korea, you may be shocked to discover that Google is not the top search engine in town. It’s obviously not Bing or Yahoo either. That coveted position is held by a local platform called Naver. If you’re now wondering “What is Naver?” or “What does Naver do?”, you would not be the first traveler to think that. 

With many Koreans having embraced a digital lifestyle, Naver plays a big role in how they navigate their day-to-day activities. You simply cannot ignore or avoid using Naver if you want to get around the country, find the best places to shop or get restaurant recommendations. If you’re a digital marketer or brand interested in the Korean market, being able to use Naver will play a vital role in understanding the country, its people, and its unique culture in a way that a Google search simply will not provide.

In this blog post, you’ll find out what Naver is, how it differs from Google, and which Naver features you might be interested in. If you’re an English speaker, then it is essential that you learn how to use Naver in English. We’ll show a few simple tips on that too.  

What Is Naver?

In 1999, a team of ex-employees from South Korean conglomerate Samsung unveiled their own Korean web portal with their own search engine, the first of its kind in South Korea. Naver was also one of the first in the world to introduce a comprehensive search results feature, which collects results from various categories such as blogs, news articles, images, etc. from the web and presents them to the user on a single page. This was years before Google introduced its own “Universal Search” feature. 

Although commonly referred to as the ‘Korean Google’, Naver offers its users much more than just search features. The Naver website is a single access point for a host of online services, such as digital payments with Naver Pay, e-commerce with Naver Shopping, e-mail with Naver Mail, translation services like Papago, and music streaming with Naver VIBE. You can check the weather forecast, use Naver Map to find your way around, book flights, or buy a car. There are even academic citation databases and educational content with Junior Naver for kids. 

Naver was also one of the first to encourage user-generated content since there was very little content to be found in the Korean language during the early days of the platform. They introduced ‘Knowledge iN’ in 2002, which functions as a public online platform to ask questions and get answers. This was similar to Yahoo Answers, although the South Korean service predated the American one. 

Naver Cafe, which allows users to create their own online communities similar to Reddit, remains strong with millions of cafes, and Naver Blog has surpassed 30 million blogs by 2021, indicating the importance of user-generated content to the success of the platform. With all of this information at their fingertips, it is no wonder that over 90% of Koreans use Naver at least once a week. The Naver App, available on iOS and Android, delivers all of this functionality to your smartphone. 

How Naver Is Different From Google

As of 2021, Naver takes 56% of the market share in search, compared to Google’s 34% in Korea. This is because Naver’s search algorithms, which present results based on the user’s age, gender, and location, are designed to work in the Korean language. When combined with its vast repository of user-generated content, Naver is capable of delivering more relevant localized content when compared to Google.

Naver’s homepage is very different from that of Google’s and is more akin to that of Yahoo. It presents real-time information, trending topics, and news stories, all designed to keep a user in the Naver ecosystem. Since most content, including user-generated content, is in Hangul, the Korean language alphabet, many locals naturally prefer it. 

Naver has its own version of Wikipedia called the Naver Encyclopedia. This is considered to be an authoritative source for Naver’s ranking algorithms, and relevant articles are pulled from it to be included in the search results. Naver has also successfully harnessed community-driven content to fill in knowledge gaps using Naver Blog, Naver Cafe, and Knowledge iN in a way that Google hasn’t done outside of YouTube. Naver works closely with news companies and thousands of social media influencers to reach out to an even wider audience. 

Naver also has Naver TV for streaming web dramas, VIBE for music streaming, and Naver Shopping for e-commerce. When taken as a whole, the equivalent of this would be Google having Reddit, Wikipedia, Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon all under one roof. 

Naver Features That Are Popular Around The World

While Naver has been mostly limited to the South Korean market, some of its features have enjoyed popularity outside the country. Naver Webtoon is one such service that offers users access to digital comics created by professional artists from 23 genres. The Naver Webtoon platform has managed to penetrate both the Eastern and Western markets due to its inclusion of a translation feature that supports many languages. This demand has also been driven by Naver Webtoon partnerships with high-profile international comics legends like Stan Lee and companies like DC Entertainment. Start browsing the latest comics at Webtoon. 

Naver Maps is great for finding tourist attractions and navigating around the country if you’re a visitor. While Google Maps does work, Naver Maps presents better-localized results if you need to search using the Korean language. As a result, it has become an indispensable tool for tourists who wish to go sightseeing. 

Naver has a wealth of information on South Korea through its Naver Encyclopedia, a professional database with over 3 million entries on various topics such as history, art, science, technology, and more. The data has been sourced from academic institutions, publications, other domestic encyclopedias, and experts in the relevant fields. A useful feature is the ability to browse entries contributed by each expert. As a result, Naver Encyclopedia remains a popular resource among users who are doing research related to South Korea. 

How To Use Naver In English

If you’re primarily an English speaker, then the language barrier will quickly become an issue that restricts your ability to consume content available on Naver. This is because a large amount of the content is user generated and is not written in English. Thankfully, there are many ways to translate into the language of your choice, some of which were introduced by Naver to bridge this gap for non-Koreans. 

Google Translate in Chrome

If you’re using Google Chrome, then as soon as you visit the Naver homepage, Google Translate, which is built-in to the browser, will automatically translate the page for you. This feature is very handy since you don’t need to visit another page or web service to do this. Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge support similar auto-translate options.

With this feature, you can browse the pages, find the content you’re looking for, and even read blog posts as well as news articles. Although this works most of the time, some awkwardness is to be expected with the grammar and sentence structure. 

Naver Dictionary and Papago

Many foreigners rely on Papago as well, the company’s web translator. This works similarly to Google Translate, with the option to hear the translation through text-to-speech, and even translate using URLs. It even presents a Dual View, to compare the original and translated web pages side by side. For more context, users can enter the Naver Dictionary, which is available to find meanings, examples, and thesaurus functionality.

Use Naver Whale to Browse in English

Naver has also introduced its own web browser called Whale, which is available in English and Korean. Built using Chromium, this browser has the Papago Translation features built-in and is capable of translating web pages to many languages, similar to Google Translate on Chrome. You can download and try out Naver Whale here.

Navigate Korea With Naver

Naver is the single platform for many Koreans to access everything from e-commerce to digital payments, music streaming, and building online communities. The company has harnessed user-generated content to great effect, allowing bloggers, influencers, news companies, and experts to contribute their knowledge. All of this content has been placed at your fingertips, easily accessible using the Naver search engine. 

This content can now be translated into English or any other language of your choice with Google Translate on Chrome, Papago, and Naver Dictionary. If you wish to learn more about Korea, go sightseeing around Seoul, or simply want to read the latest issue of your favorite webcomic, then Naver is the perfect companion for you.