SEO and digital marketing in South Korea: Google and Naver, the KFTC endorsement rules and separate consent for marketing

SEO in Korea means working on two search engines, not one. StatCounter's September 2026 figures give Google 47.97% of search in South Korea and Naver 43.06%, so an agency that only does Google work is covering about half the market. Before you hire an SEO agency or a digital marketing agency in Seoul, check three things: that the plan includes Naver Search Advisor registration and Naver's own channels, that every paid review or creator post is labelled in Korean as the Fair Trade Commission's endorsement guidelines require, and that your sign-up forms take a separate consent for marketing under the Personal Information Protection Act.

We read the sources on this page on 22 October 2026. Korean-speaking readers can use our Korean guides to choosing an SEO agency in Korea and to SEO basics for Google and Naver.

Where Korean customers search and scroll

StatCounter's September 2026 figures for South Korea: Google 47.97%, Naver 43.06%, Bing 4.83% and Daum 0.73%. StatCounter measures page views on the sites it tracks, so your own analytics may show a different split, especially if your buyers are consumers who start on Naver's apps. Check which engines send your visitors before you agree a plan.

For social media, the same month shows YouTube sending 77.9% of the visits that social networks send to websites, Facebook 8.11%, X (Twitter) 6.29% and Instagram 3.23%. These count clicks out to websites only. They do not count KakaoTalk, which many Korean businesses use for customer messages.

What a Korean SEO agency should deliver

Google work

Google lists the services an SEO provider can usefully offer: a review of your site's content or structure, technical advice on hosting, redirects, error pages and JavaScript, content development, keyword research, SEO training, and expertise in specific markets and geographies. The same page tells owners to grant only read access to Search Console during an audit, and says "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google."

Naver work

Naver publishes its own webmaster guide on Naver Search Advisor. It says Naver's crawler identifies itself as Yeti, recommends controlling its access through robots.txt, and states that site content is reflected in Naver search within up to one week after the crawler visits. A Korean SEO plan should include:

• registering and verifying the site in Naver Search Advisor, and submitting a sitemap;
• checking that robots.txt and the firewall allow Yeti;
• unique titles and descriptions on every page, since Naver, like Google, reads them;
• a plan for Naver's own channels, such as Naver Blog and Smart Place for local businesses, where your buyers may look before they reach your website.

Our guide to Naver SEO, the Yeti crawler and the markup Naver reads covers the steps in detail.

Korean written in Korean

Keyword Planner shows "korea seo" at around 140 searches a month in South Korea, in English, and "advertising in south korea" at around 50. Many of these searchers are foreign companies or English-speaking teams in Seoul. If that is you, the main question is who writes the Korean. Korean buyers search with their own phrasing, so keyword research must be done in Korean, with Naver's tools as well as Google's, not translated from an English list. Our guide to multilingual SEO architecture sets out how to link the language versions.

Paid reviews and creators: the KFTC endorsement guidelines

Korea's Fair Trade Commission sets the rules for endorsements and testimonials in its guidelines on the review of endorsement advertising. The current version, which we read on the National Law Information Center, was amended as Established Rule No. 499 and took effect on 1 June 2026. Its main points for marketers:

• Disclose every economic interest. Where the advertiser and the endorser have an economic relationship that could affect the content, it must be disclosed clearly in each post. The guidelines give examples: cash, free products, gift certificates, points, discounts, or being employed by the advertiser.
• Agency staff count too. A post on a blog, cafe or social network by an employee of the advertiser or of its ad agency, recommending a product, is an example the guidelines list.
• Put the label next to the content. A disclosure written in a comment, or one that appears only after tapping "more", is not easy for consumers to find.
• Use clear words in the same language. The Korean words for "advertisement" and "sponsored", including as hashtags, are given as clear labels. Vague ones such as "experience review", "gift" or a bare brand hashtag are not. For posts aimed at Korean consumers, English labels such as "AD", "PR", "Sponsor" or "Collaboration" are listed as not clear enough.
• AI-generated people must be disclosed. If an advertisement uses a virtual person created with AI that is hard to tell from a real one, that must be disclosed, at the title or start of a post, or next to the person in a photo or video.

Before you sign with a social media or influencer agency in Korea, ask how it applies each of these points, and who checks each post before it goes live.

Personal data: separate consent for marketing

The Personal Information Protection Act, in the version in force from 11 September 2026 on the National Law Information Center, governs the forms, member sign-ups and customer lists that digital marketing uses. Article 22 requires consent to be taken separately for each purpose, and lists consent to process personal data to promote goods or services or to solicit sales as one that must be taken on its own. In practice, a sign-up form needs its own marketing consent box, not a single "I agree to everything". Article 30 requires a published privacy policy. Ask your agency to check these before it builds a form or uploads a customer list to an ad platform.

Google Ads and Shopping from Korea

Google's tax help page says that from 1 July 2019 Google adds 10% VAT to all transactions in South Korea, unless you are a corporate advertiser and have provided a valid Business Registration number. For an online shop, Google's Merchant Center says that to show products to people in South Korea you must have a business registration number applied to your account. Ask any agency to confirm both before it quotes a media budget. Naver also sells search ads, so ask whether the agency manages them and reports them separately from Google Ads.

Questions about SEO and digital marketing in South Korea

Do we need Naver SEO as well as Google SEO?

For most businesses selling to Korean consumers, yes. Naver had 43.06% of search in StatCounter's September 2026 figures, and it has its own webmaster tool, crawler and channels.

Can a paid blog review in Korea be labelled "AD" in English?

For posts aimed at Korean consumers, the Fair Trade Commission's guidelines list English labels such as "AD" and "PR" as not clear enough. Use the Korean word for advertisement or sponsorship, placed next to the content.

Can we use one consent checkbox for our newsletter and our terms?

No. Article 22 of the Personal Information Protection Act requires consent for marketing to be taken separately from other consents.

Can a foreign company run Korean SEO from abroad?

Yes, if the Korean is written by native writers, the site is registered with Naver as well as Google, and someone can answer Korean enquiries.

When can we judge whether an agency in Korea is working?

Judge it on what is measured: the agreed work delivered, impressions and positions in Search Console and Naver Search Advisor, enquiries by page, and cost per enquiry in each ad account. Google's SEO Starter Guide says "Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months." The outcome depends on competition, your offer and your budget.

When a buyer in Korea asks an assistant instead

A manager in Seoul can ask ChatGPT or Gemini, in Korean or English, for "a good SEO agency in Seoul for a foreign brand" and get three names, and the Korean and English answers can name different firms. Those names come from directories, articles, blogs and the pages the assistant can read. AI Knows Us is a different kind of service from an agency: it asks buyer questions like these on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and shows a company which firms get named and why. Its site and reports are in English.