I have always been a strong believer in neo-liberalism and a strong proponent that global trade will democratize a country over time as the country’s citizens will eventually clamor for more political freedom in order to expand their economic freedom. We have seen this already happen in a variety of places around the world, the latest being China.

Business people are allowed to be in the CCP in order to give them a greater say in how the state should run things and people in the cities will even protest ridiculous regulations (such as limitations on the type of dogs Beijing people can own).

The idea is that this process slowly begins to open up the country as more and more rights are demanded until some point either around the average affordability of a car (usually around $5000 GDP per capita) or when a government basing its power on improving the economy fails to continue doing so. At this point, the people clamor for a change in government that leads to some kind of democratic society.

Usually I believe that this can be supplemented with external factors where other nations, corporations, or NGOs will help push for greater liberalization by mandating certain conditions be met before investments are made. China in fact had to meet a number of factors in order to be accepted into the WTO and for the most part, it was able to meet many of those commitments.

Unfortunately, this often implies that these corporations or NGOs have a larger amount of authority or integrity of beliefs than the non-democratic nation. The International Olympic Committee has shown that it does not really stand for their own principles:

Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.

Outrage is definitely pouring across the Internet for what the IOC has done, even making Robert Vance post some harsh words against the IOC:

[T]he International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now officially an accomplice to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and all of the Chinese government’s attempts to censor free speech and block personal freedoms in China. According to a report from Reuter’s on Wednesday, “some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.” Cut a deal? There was no deal. The IOC ‘rolled over and played dead’ just like it has been doing since it bestowed the Olympics upon Beijing 8 years ago. The IOC leadership has proved itself once again to be spineless; it might as well be just another arm of the CCP. The IOC has brought shame upon itself as well as upon the Olympic Games with the way in which it has allowed Beijing to censor free speech.

Such events makes me wonder whether external events related to trade really is a form of economic liberalization or in actuality economic stablization. If the forces of democracy and freedom do not hold firm to some kind of principles, then trade may only be a force of economic stablization rather than a push towards democracy.

Any thoughts on this is greatly appreciated.

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One of things I wanted to follow up on my post about Google Knol SEO spam is in reference to Aaron Wall’s post about how he was testing Google’s lack of concern over copyright infringement:

One day after Knol publicly launched Wil Reynolds noticed that a Knol page was already ranking. Danny Sullivan did a further test showing that 33% of his test set of Knol pages were ranking in the first page of search results. Danny was also surprised that his Knol was ranking #28 after 1 day. After citing it on his blog now that Knol page ranks #1 in Google!

[...]

Maybe we are being a bit biased and/or are rushing to judgement? Maybe a more scientific effort would compare how Knol content ranks to other content when it is essentially duplicate content? I did not want to mention that I was testing that when I created my SEO Basics Knol, but the content was essentially a duplicate of my Work.com Guide to Learning SEO (that was also syndicated to Business.com). Even Google shows this directly on the Knol page

Google Knows its Duplicate Content

Assuming for the moment that we are not rushing to judgment, this would suggest Google has a very high tolerance (94%!) for duplicate content. Since my blog is a lowly PR 3 at the time of this post (hopefully will go up in time), just about every time my post is sphunn on Sphinn, the Sphinn post replaces my original article in the SERPs.

Going back to Wall’s Knol page, it even got as high as position 2 for SEO Basics (now in position 11 at the time of this post), all for a duplicate content page, while the original page ranked highly for other keywords due to titling the articles differently.

What this means: Any grayhat SEOs could optimize an article many times over by publishing content everywhere on the web and rank for hundreds of keywords all by changing the headers. Got an article that talks about both Chinese dumplings and potstickers? Use the same article, but change up the keywords in the header so you can get both to rank for the different keywords.

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If you are ever in doubt of the competitiveness of Baidu against Google, note that Bloomberg.com has information on the growing profits of Baidu:

China’s most-used Internet search engine, posted an 87 percent jump in second- quarter profit, beating analysts’ estimates and sending the shares up 13 percent.

The hidden gem from the article though is the fact that Baidu’s search market share continues to grow despite the international heavy weight of Google:

Baidu’s share of the Chinese Internet search market rose to 64.4 percent in the second quarter from 58 percent a year earlier, according to research firm Analysys International. Google’s share rose to 26.1 percent from 23 percent while Yahoo! Inc.’s fell to 5.5 percent from 11.6 percent, the Beijing-based researcher said.

They recommended buying stock, go figure.

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Update 7/28/2008:

Per my last comment, Aaron Wall was doing an SEO test to see how well duplicate content will rank and that even while Google knows it is duplicate content, will help it outrank more established sites like Business.com. Since this was done as a test, please note that all opinions below towards this shall be regarded as moot.

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It did not take long for SEO Spam to begin with even Aaron Wall promoting his efforts to optimize Knol.

Look, the guy is brilliant and definitely well-versed and absolutely knowledgeable in SEO (anyone interested in SEO should be following his feed). Yet, when you’re creating an article that is going to be on what is supposedly going to be an authoritative wikipedia, one should not be putting over 50% (18/35 links) of your external links to your own site and tools!

Yes it’s great marketing and yes his site should be referenced in many ways for basic SEO (and beyond), but for any person with little knowledge of SEO they will only see this as spam when it references mainly the author’s content and products. Would you trust an article that references over half its own sites?

To give credit where it’s due, he is asking for help to optimize it. My tip: Don’t be creating content and linking heavily to your own site (eg: don’t just link to your own SEO for Firefox page; link to competing products like SEOQuake [my disclaimer: I use SEOQuake over SEO for Firefox]).

Or, even better, post a disclaimer that you’re linking to your own site! Why? If this is supposed to be authoritative then really this article should be removed for vanity that even “lowly” Wikipedia would remove.

In the end, it’s good marketing for him, but bad PR for the rest of us.

I will not likely win any friends on this post in the SEO world, but I’m not one to shy away from my opinions.

Update:

Final comment–I should have added potential PR damage to SEOs on my Knol SEO blog post.

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(click to enlarge)

Yes, you read that right, it says:

Who needs a search engine? Ctrl+F

A little inside joke at Google perhaps?

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Here’s something to think about, China’s TLD (.cn) is boasts the largest number of TLDs and is one of the top spam TLDs as well.

Multilingual Search has the top TLD by numbers details:

For a number of years, Germany (.de) was the world’s most popular ccTLD in terms of registrations.

But about two years ago China made its ccTLD a lot more affordable and easier to get. Since then, the country has been registering roughly 20,000 country codes a day. The country went from 2 million registrations to 10 million registrations in an amazing 12 months.

Within the past two months, China overtook Germany for the top spot, with approximately 11.4 million registrations. It’s safe to say that Germany isn’t going to take that lead back.

John Andrews includes info on the top spam TLDs:

A security firm is releasing a report stating .hk, .cn, and .info domains are the most “dangerous” when it comes to threats of malware. Whether you like McAfee or not, search engines like Google and Yahoo and MSN are very likely to incoporate this “trust” factor into their operations, if they haven’t already done that. We know Google doesn’t like .info as much as .com, and this new “evidence” appears to confirm whatever rationale Google might give for that. I fully expect Google to have more data available on the topic than McAfee anyway.

Of all “.hk” sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of “.cn” sites and 11.7 percent of “.info” sites that way.

A simple math reveals that China has about 1.35 million spam domains on .cn (we could say that China has even more if you want to be technical and note that Hong Kong is a part of China, but let’s focus on just .cn domains here).

So, here’s the dilemma for trying to rank in China:

• Want to rank well on search engines in China (Google)? Don’t get a .cn domain to avoid spam penalty.
• Want to rank well on search engines in China (by Chinese government)? Get a .cn domain to avoid government penalty.

Solution:

• Get a .中国 (zhongguo) domain. Oh, you expected this to be available now?

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Google has launched Google Knol officially today (officially beta of course) and in case you don’t know what Google Knol is about:

Knols include strong community tools which allow for many modes of interaction between readers and authors. People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.

Essentially it’s middle ground between Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia - with ads for revenue! It’s heavily focused on authors writing the content (the URL strings are author-based first, article title second).

So, how useful could it be for abuse… I mean for SEO? It’s definitely useful, but think twice about the amount of time you will need to spend on it.

The Good

• It is expected that many of these pages will rank quite well for a variety of terms with external backlinks and that Google will be promoting it through very highly ranked Google pages.
• $$$$ - need I say more?
• Brand reputation management for people and corporations
• Long-tail content that can be outsourced

The Bad

• Brand reputation hits on people and corporations
• <meta name=”robots” content=”index,nofollow” /> - So much for getting backlinks to your site with spammy pages (this goes for internal links as well)
• The amount of time to spend writing worthwhile articles may not be worth the investment except in certain markets
• Once you die, Google no longer needs to pay anyone–in the long term that means heavy investment up front, but low maintenance costs over time

And The Ugly

• Wanna knock down prominent Wikipedia pages? Duplicate the content, but change it enough to avoid claims of copying it
• Google corporate-owned SERPs
• Once the site gets large enough, the feasibility of stopping spam may become too great to stop (This is different from Wikipedia due to vigilant non-Wikipedia employee people helping for free)

There’s probably more on each side, but these are the first few ideas that popped into my head. Feel free to comment on any other things that may come up.

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A fun article about one of my favorite cities, Shanghai, in the New Yorker titled “Buy Shanghai!” talks about the lifestyle and changes (both good and bad) that the city has gone through in the eyes of the author. I stack up my experiences from 2003 and 2005 against this article along with a few quips of my own.

The assorted finials on the tops of skyscrapers will make you think of a bottle opener, a Jell-O mold, a crown roast, a bamboo steamer, a chuppah, a Mobius strip, a snake that’s swallowed some golf balls, the Eiffel Tower, Lady Liberty’s headpiece, and the spiny back of a stegosaurus. Don’t breathe! The air is smelly with garbage juice. The sun, if visible at all, seems dimmer than the full moon on a hazy night. Need more light? You can see everything better after dusk, when the lunatic neon is switched on.

I would have added a skyscraper face that looks at you from four directions, but beyond that the description is sound.

“You can do business with them,” Helen Noh, a Korean who lives in Shanghai, said, referring to the Chinese. “But you should realize that, in the end, they are always going to win.”

Actually, I would say that this is more specific towards the Shanghainese–no matter how low you can bargain on prices there, if you are not speaking in 上海话 (Shanghai dialect) and are not a 上海本地人 (native Shanghainese), then you’re being ripped off. That’s why I had my friends help bargain for me instead–saved both time and money, and at least I don’t lose as badly, because no matter how good your Chinese or Shanghainese, you are still going to lose. It’s a game, so play it well.

There are markets for everything in Shanghai, including crickets. These come in varieties meant for competitive fighting [...] and for keeping as pets[.]

Now, mind you, I never actually saw a market place for crickets, but rather saw single guys with two loads (one on each side of a stick that he put across his back) that likely had 100+ containers filled with one cricket each in them. You can imagine the noise they made just walking down the sidewalk.

“Beijing’s short and wide. Shanghai’s tall and compact.” “Shanghai is more refined. More attention to detail.” “Shanghai’s female, Beijing’s male.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is Washington, D.C.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is L.A.” “Shanghai is Tel Aviv. Beijing is Jerusalem.” “Beijing is China. Shanghai is Shanghai.”

One cannot get a closer comparison to Beijing and Shanghai than comparing them to Washington D.C. and New York respectively. Whenever I went to a Beijing store, almost every other salesperson would ask why the US invaded Iraq (2003), whereas those in Shanghai would ask if I was French. Nonetheless, to understand Shanghai, remember the last quote — “Beijing is China. Shanghai is Shanghai.” — to understand the respective views of the Chinese people in the respective cities.

[T]he best deal? The underground eyeglass market near the railway station. In this bazaar, jam-packed with booths, you can get a pair of stylish, albeit no-name frames, complete with lenses ground to your prescription–all for a negotiated price of about $22.

Tempting, but good luck trying to find ones that will fit a European face–I actually lost a pair of my glasses in 2003 and could not for the life of me find any that would fit my “American” face–even in a store called “American Eyes.”

In China, it’s not always easy to know what’s going on, even today. CNN periodically blacks out for twenty seconds or so, and good luck navigating your way around the Great Firewall as you trying to get information online about anything having to do with what are referred to as the three “T”s.

True, although back in 2003 as a foreign exchange student I could often get around this through, and this will be the only time I recommend them, AOL. With their own wall-garden, you can access any of your favorite sites blocked, but good luck finding AOL at any 网吧 (Internet cafe).

As I told my friends on why I went to Shanghai instead of Beijing as a foreign exchange student–I wanted to do more than just study the Chinese language, but also learn about China’s history, culture, and economy. In the end, I believe I came back richer for the experience and luckier in terms of a fabulous wife.

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I had wanted to do an in-depth post on noting what you could do with Google Adword’s new ability to show actual search numbers, but All Things SEM did a fabulous job of the ideas that ran through my head when I heard about this news.

Instead I’ll just remark that there are two important types of people humans listen to: The Pessimist (seen here as Smackdown) vs. The Optimist (seen here as All Things SEM).

The Pessimist takes the news of Adwords showing search numbers by beginning in this way:

The problem is, however, that those numbers are meant for people doing research into PPC traffic. The numbers shown have very little to do with what people actually search on using Google.com.

Often times they will claim the mantle of “Realist” insisting that the Optimist is naive in the approach. Yet, the instinctual drive towards thumbing down new information limits the boundaries of what is possible.

The Optimist takes the news in this way:

More Accurate Data

Better Upfront Planning

Click Through Rates for SERPs

Title and Description Testing

Improved PPC and SEO Synergies

The Optimist takes down ideas and creatively comes up with new possibilities to test and use in order to create new opportunities and improve upon existing campaigns. Yes, sometimes that leads to wrong paths and errors, but without trying and testing, then you are left with a stagnant campaign.

I prefer to take the path of creativity and new ideas rather than shooting down new possibilities and thus why All Things SEM goes into my RSS feed. You want someone who sits down and thinks of all the possible ways to work with and use new data rather than throw it to the wind.

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Hardcore gaming gets even more serious as Hot Hardware has the details on an awesome brain-to-computer interface:

OCZ Technology has laid claim to being the first company to bring a “brain-computer” interface to the retail market and they have aimed it squarely at the gamer. The device is called the NIA, which is an acronym that stands for Neural Impulse Actuator, and instead of buttons, sticks, gyroscopes or motion sensors, it reads the body’s natural biosignals and translates them into commands that can be used to control PC games.

[...]

The NIA is able to detect three types of biosignals generated by your brain, facial muscles and eye muscles via a special headband. The user can bind these signals to any keystroke using the driver and configuration software.

Before you beginning doubting the claims, Hot Hardware did a month study on the product and actually found it to improve gaming performance at a cost of $150… and for any real gamer, that’s chump change when they’re buying $7000+ gaming computer.

That means the next time you’re thinking they are hacking, he’s not — he’s mind gaming!

Taking it beyond gaming, this device could be used to implement odd strokes that are odd to type on the keywboard (caps key, shift key, alt + shift for typing in Chinese…).

That would be a fun device to add to my regiment at work as well… Borgtown here we come!

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