While Google dominates internet searching in most countries it isn't quite the all-conquering behemoth you might think it is - and has had to come up with ways to increase its share of website traffic in a number of places.

A report in the Financial Times describes how Google is not synonymous with internet searching in Russia, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Japan and - perhaps most worryingly for shareholders - China.

Indeed, Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt told the newspaper that Google's lack of dominance in China was because of "bizarre" foreign media laws and that "all of us should tell the Chinese that their local markets need to be open to foreign investment, they need not favour their local competitors".

Or perhaps all of us should tell Mr Schmidt that China is still technically a socialist country - and one that still has strong internet censorship laws, apparently.

Google's mistakes in all of these countries involved investing late and not getting the technology up to scratch for the local language and while the latter appears to be solved, the problem is now that these search engines are as strong a brand as Google, locally speaking.

But could this line of thought be followed on to say that Google's dominance in other countries is for the same reason - while it was the best to begin with, now it is mainly relying on its brand?

Business Feet deliver targeted results through search engine optimisation