Seyong Park on Naver market share in Korea: 51 to 49 with Google

Seyong Park, founder and CEO of the Korean search data company Ascent AI, said on episode 23 that Naver market share in Korea is now close to even with Google's. Leaving shopping searches aside, he said, his company's own data puts Naver and Google at about 51 to 49 in general search. This is search share (portals and search engines), not e-commerce share.

In our heads, searching for products inside the Naver store also counts as searching, so Naver's search rate still comes out very high and looks high. But if you only look at general search, even in our company's data it seems to have come down to a ratio of about 51:49.

Seyong Park

Asked where brands should put their effort in Korea, Naver or Google, Park did not give a ratio. He said he could not say what percentage to put where. His answer was that the work for Naver and the work for Google do not split apart, so the content on your own website comes first and each channel only changes the tone and rhythm. This post covers the Naver part of episode 23 (32:30 to 39:11). The episode is in Korean. This is the English version of a Korean post, and every quote below is translated from Korean. Each section links to its part of the video.

The figures in this post come from Ascent AI's own data, as stated by Seyong Park on camera in September 2026. They are not statistics I measured.

✦Was Naver ever a search engine?

Watch this part of the episode 32:30

In Korea you keep hearing that the Naver era is over, or that Google search volume has overtaken Naver. My channel mostly covers Google and AI search, but I asked Park for his view on Naver. He described Naver as a portal with search inside it, and said that seen that way, what is happening now is a natural result.

If you ask whether Naver search was ever a search engine in the pure sense, I do not think it really was.

Because they built their search results mostly around the properties inside their own portal, they themselves said "we are a portal service." They never once called themselves a global search engine.

When other search engines in Korea were very weak, it took 80%, 90% share, but now we have an alternative. So it looks like it is losing its position as a search engine very quickly.

✦Why it still feels as if everyone uses Naver

Watch this part of the episode 32:30

Park pointed to shopping.

There is Naver Shopping, and there is Smart Store, so when we go to buy things we go to Naver. And our wallet is connected there too, so we use it the way we use a platform.

People remember looking for a product inside the store as a search. That is why Naver's search rate comes out high, or looks high, while general search on its own tells a different story, which is the 51:49 remark quoted at the top. When you read a Naver market share figure, it is worth checking first whether shopping searches are counted.

✦Park's figures: 13 billion searches a month down to 10.5 billion in three years

Watch this part of the episode 34:58

When I asked whether that was the ratio between Google and Naver, Park said it had changed, and moved on to search volume.

Looking at this year, Koreans search roughly 10.5 to 10.6 billion times a month. 10.5 billion, 10.6 billion searches. That came down over the past three years from around 13 billion.

But over that period, Google never once went down. Google kept growing steadily, while Naver's search volume kept shrinking.

The overall drop I mentioned is partly because a lot moved over to AI search, but it looks like many of the people who used Naver moved over.

Put together, Park said that total monthly searches in Korea fell from about 13 billion to 10.5 to 10.6 billion over three years, that Google did not decline in that time, and that Naver did. Park put part of the overall drop down to people moving to AI search, and said it looks as if many former Naver users moved over.

✦How to split effort between Naver and Google

Watch this part of the episode 35:52

Park has worked on many projects for large companies, so I asked how a brand that wants to show up on Naver, Google and ChatGPT should divide its budget. It is a question I keep coming back to myself.

Every brand's situation is so different right now that it is hard to say what the right answer is.

Realistically, can you give up on Naver in Korea? If you think about how much Naver members use it inside Naver, I think you obviously have to pay attention to it. But what percentage to put there, I do not think I can answer.

Instead of a ratio, he answered with an approach.

Do the measures for Naver and the measures for Google split apart completely? I do not think so. So basically I think you should take the approach of making content and responding to both Naver and Google with it.

The content on your own website now matters a lot not only for Google but for Naver too.

He also put the Naver blog in a different place.

If in the past we thought the Naver blog was far more important than our own company blog and we had to pile all our content there, there is no need for that now. I personally think it is enough to treat the Naver blog like one of the several social channels we manage, at that level of standing, where content aligned with what is on the company website goes up as a variation.

✦Change only the tone and rhythm per channel

Watch this part of the episode 38:03

When I summed it up as having to cover both Naver and Google in depth, Park said "in depth" could be misleading, and explained.

Once we publish a piece of content, I do not think we need to feel that we have covered that topic once so we cannot use it elsewhere and have to write something completely different everywhere.

Each channel's visitors have different traits. For example, the way LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram differ.

My thinking is that when you post articles you wrote on the same topic for our company blog on Naver, it is enough to run it as a variation in the tone and rhythm that suit Naver's users.

Rather than thinking you have to do something completely different, I think it is right to think of it as consistently spreading the related message that way.

✦Three takeaways from the Google side

Watch this part of the episode 32:30

I work on Google SEO and AI search, not Naver SEO. So these takeaways only read Park's points from the Google side.

1. Google has not shrunk. By Park's data, Google search volume in Korea did not go down once in the past three years. The assumption that Naver has most of Korea so Google can wait is worth revisiting.
2. Keep the original on your own website. Park said your website content now matters for Naver as well as Google. It is also what Google indexes.
3. Check the basis of any share figure. With shopping searches counted, Naver comes out high; in general search alone, Park said, it was 51:49. When you quote a Korea search engine market share figure, first check what was counted as a search.

For the practical choice between the two engines, see Naver or Google in Korea (episode 3). For why Naver's results favour Naver's own content, see Naver is closing the loop on its own AI answers (episode 16). What makes AI recommend a brand is in How to get recommended by ChatGPT: why AI picks the brands it does. How to choose which prompts to manage in AI search is in Category entry points in AI search: how to choose the prompts to manage.

✦Common questions