Naver is the search engine whose name combines “navigate” with the suffix “-er.” The word suggests a person navigating the vast ocean of information on the internet.
Naver was launched by Naver Corporation in South Korea and became the country’s first web provider to develop its own search engine. The company was founded on June 2, 1999, and its portal expanded beyond search to include mail, news, maps, blogs, shopping, and other services.
A common mix-up is treating Naver as only a conventional search page like Google. In South Korea, it functions more broadly as an integrated web portal, with locally tailored content and services. Its name is also unrelated to Baidu, Yandex, or Sogou, whose names have different linguistic origins.