Tehran, YJC. The Iranian search engine Yooz was launched on Sunday with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Communications and IT.
Capable of searching through one billion Persian websites, the
Iranian search engine Yooz (Persian for Cheetah) will provide Iranian users
with the opportunity to search through Persian websites in a faster and more
secure fashion.
Project manager Mehdi Naghavi said that Iran ranks sixth in
the world in using Google.
He noted, "Iranian users visit Google 25 million times a
day, which makes countries such as Germany, France, Italy and China fall in
tenth ranking onward.”
Naghavi further stated that launching a domestic search
engine is expected to foil potential internet-related sanctions, introduce the
Persian web to academia, and remove limitations placed on the users due to international
sanctions.
The official explained that 9 foreign search engines had
been thoroughly studied to design and launch the domestic search engine Yooz.
He said: 1 billion Persian websites have been covered in the
first phase of the project, and in the 2nd phase coverage for Persian, Arabic
and English websites will increase to 6 billion, and then the number will rise
up to 24 billion websites in the 3rd phase of the project.