French-Language Search Engines

How to Find French-Language Websites

Low Angle View Of French Flag — Simon Jakubowski / EyeEm / Getty Images

Updated on February 19, 2020

If you do a lot of internet searches related to French-speaking countries or their products, consider using a French-language search engine ('moteur de recherche') because it may yield more relevant results than your default search engine.

No matter if the search engine's headquarters are not in a non-French-speaking country, there are "localization" companies that make it their business to translate and customize content to distinct cultures and countries. They employ localization experts who take their job seriously and do it well. This is why the Google country sites below will give you detailed, targeted content about French-speaking countries.

French Google

Google offers dozens of country-specific search engines; here are the ones for francophone countries. Note that for multilingual countries, you may need to click "français" near the search box to go to the French interface. Click on the country of your choice:

French Bing

Bing has a beautiful country-specific search engine for France. For French-speaking Canada, go to Bing Canada, which is naturally in both English and French. On the home page, choose "Français" in the upper right corner for French content.

French Yahoo

Yahoo has developed country-specific search engines, and three Francophone countries are among them: Yahoo France, Yahoo Belgique, and Yahoo Canada, although interspersed with the usual Yahoo pop news are advertisements in English. This gives the pages, particularly the home page, a somewhat chaotic and disrespectful look.

For other countries, go to the upper right corner of www.yahoo.com and click on the little flag in the upper right corner; a master list of Yahoo country sites and their languages will drop down. On this list, click on France (français), Belgique (français) and Québec (français) to open these sites.

The Original French Search Engine

You could also try one of the genuine French-language search engines listed below. The first is based in France, while the second and third are Québecois:

Voila, is the Cadillac of original French search engines. It is used by Orange, formerly France Télécom S.A., a French multinational telecommunications corporation with 256 million customers worldwide.

Searchengineland.com explains:

"Telecom companies over the years have, in general, gained a larger slice of 'eyeballs' and have often overtaken the former search engines for audience. In France, for instance, Orange has a very strong portal, which carries a search function. That search function is powered by Voila.fr—probably the number one original French search engine. However, the pay-per-click advertising on Orange.fr comes from Google."