Baidu has recently come to terms with media criticisms over whether Baidu allows its paid results to influence what happens in the organic results. The Wall Street Journal’s China Journal covers this in a little bit of detail noting about Baidu’s paid results response:

Last night, in a conference call with analysts, Baidu unveiled its response: A new system that more clearly separates its paid links from ordinary search results.

“We are doing this because we care. It is important to us. We want to be a responsible corporate citizen,” said Baidu chief executive Robin Li.

They asserted again that the search company doesn’t exclude Web sites from search results because the companies behind them failed to pay for links. But Baidu executives also said they are speeding up development of the new system, called Phoenix Nest, in part to quell confusion. Under Phoenix Nest, paid ads will appear in a clearly marked section on the right side of the search results page.

Baidu has long argued that its paid links are marked, but yesterday CEO Robin Li said, “We do hear from the press from time to time that some of our users were confused by paid and non-paid content.”

This is nothing new for what search engines have had to deal with as even Google has been accussed in the past for possible monetizing their own organic results based off of their paid results as well or not adequately separating their paid/organic results.

Oftentimes those of us in the online advertising industry take for granted that what we understand about search the average Internet user does as well. In fact, most Internet users do not know all of the paid areas of the search results. Let us take an example of someone interested in looking for “gaming computers:”

You would likely get most people able to answer that there are at least one are of the above results being paid search, but that will hinge on whether the browser’s monitor coloring can differentiate the off-color yellow.

Fewer would realize the results on the right are paid, even with the sponsored links showing up. It is not the fault of a user being an idiot, just that the user does not look for the phrase “Sponsored” as a way to tell what is organic or what is paid. This is entirely different from when you use another color to separate the results as Internet users have gotten used to seeing ads in boxes that are of a different color.

Lastly, I would be surprised if many would name the shopping results as a paid search function from Google Base. These results are certainly not a part of organic search (you can argue if it is a part of paid) even though they will vary in positioning (top, bottom, middle, etc).

The point of all this is to note for the Chinese media with knowledge of the online marketing world, that even in the US for Google, most people still do not know the difference between paid and organic results. The search engines are naturally going to muddy the waters in order to get more people to click on the paid results, so without specifically noting what should be done for all engines, there is little point to complain about the current layout.

Google China has finally launched its localization initiative in China against Baidu by launching its own mp3 music search and mimicking Baidu’s successful mp3 search, first found through Music 2.0 and later noted through Search Engine Land. Music 2.0 has the basic scoop:

[T]he much talked about Google MP3 Search service is here at www.google.cn/music [a]nd it’s certainly game on as they take on Baidu’s very illegal mp3 search with legal links from its search results provided by local music service Top 100.cn for free streaming, free mp3 downloads and lyrics supported by advertising revenue, and paid Caller RingBack Tones (CRBT) via China Mobile - with rights being cleared by most major labels (with probably one major holdout), publishers and a number of domestic labels for mainly Chinese music[.]

However, Music 2.0 notes that Jay Chow songs had yet to be allowed for download believing that no deal had been established yet, but when looking at it now, there are in fact many Jay Chow （周杰伦) songs able to be downloaded (下载), so likely Google rolled it out before it had searched for those songs:

What has really ticked me off was the fact that Google China decided to side itself with the hated regional restrictions that many DVD player makers on computers like to restrict–if you live anywhere outside of China, you get the following note:

抱歉，谷歌不在您所在的地区提供您所需要的服务。

[loosely translated: Sorry, you are not in the correct area for Google (mp3 search) to service you.]

Ironically, it is also showing this to Google’s own bot making the page very non-SEO friendly:

Now, you can always just check your IP, learn about IP proxies, and get a China open proxy (transparent), to avoid this Internet censorship, but you would still have to search (and understand) Chinese to find music you want.

So, Google once again enters in very late, does some evil, but at least is doing something to compete through localization, even if it it has to copy Baidu:

So, what does Google China’s mp3 search offer?

• Very basic level of music trends (Baidu’s is far superior offering multiple trends on one nice page)

• Ability to download songs without DRMs for the first time

• The words from the song so you can sing along (always useful)

• Streaming, but be prepared to accept the ever-so-fun EULA:

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.

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?

As I’ve noted a couple times about Google China copying Baidu in trying to surpass Baidu to become market leader within five years with dubious efforts in really understanding the Chinese market, Redline China (Pearl Research) conducted a study seeing how aware the Chinese people are about Google:

Based on interviews with the Chinese youth demographic, Google continues to struggle with lower user awareness, compared to Chinese search engine Baidu. These findings are contained in consulting firm Pearl Research’s new report “Baidu vs. Google: A Study of Search Engine Preferences among Chinese Youth.” A sample of the report can be found here: http://www.redlinechina.com/main/images2/SAMPLE_PearlResearch_Baidu_versus_Google_analysis_0801.pdf

It looks like Google continues to struggle in the wrong areas–yes, it is working hard to be better than Baidu (and in many areas it already is), but what Google still seems to not understand is the belief that a foreign company cannot do as well as a domestic one.

Key findings of the report: - Google is thought of as a foreign service which is not as suitable for Chinese searches Our interviews indicate that many Chinese youth chose to use Baidu over Google because they believe Baidu is a domestic product and thus should be better at indexing Chinese content.

When you see results like this, that means its time to start advertising within China to fight the perception through all marketing channels, even in channels that Google has previously forsaken (eg: TV advertising). Look, no matter how much better Betamax was over VHS, VHS understood the market was there in taping the full length of football games rather than having to put in two Betamax’s.

Sometimes superior products or services lose out to a competitor that can capitalize on what consumers actually want. Until Google understand this, it will always be second to Baidu.

Why use allow people to use Wikipedia and lose precious revenue when you can just go to Baidu’s own search engine friendly “Baidupedia” (百度百科)? Cnet has more:

“There’s, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based ‘out there,’” Chang said at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “It’s very natural for China to make its own products.”

Quite so! But something is entirely lost to Graham Webster when he states:

I agree that there’s not always a reason for people to use global services, especially when what they deal with is primarily domestic. But with the wiki world, I think the value of cross-border, multilingual conversation is astonishingly high.

Especially as autotranslation gets better, the benefit of not having populations nationally siloed comes into focus. If we can both read and contribute knowledge to something that primarily exists in a language I don’t know, then we really can share knowledge.

Until that utopian vision comes true, though, it very well may be that Wikipedia isn’t yet built ideally for Chinese users. Perhaps Baidu is doing a better job for people in this country. But I hope we can all get to conversing across this divide.

Follow the money–why else for Google to create its own version that is not going to be global right away anyway when Wikipedia will suffice?

In addition to my previous post on Google looking to become the market leader in China, Google is also looking to surpass Baidu as well. Sinovantage International’s blog states:

According to multiple reports, Google has set up a five years plan to gain supremacy in the search engine industry. To do so, it will need to win market share against the old rival, Baidu.com. In the short term, Google will invest in social networking sites and companies in China, while expanding on its mobile deals.

I think Google has two main issues that needs to be addressed quite urgently:

1-Google.cn is NOT better than Baidu.

2-Baidu offers services that are better than Google’s ones, or that Google just cannot offer (I am talking MP3 search for instance).

I cannot say on whether Google.cn is better than Baidu (I have heard both ways from my Chinese friends), but in terms of offering additional services, they are spot on.

And I have to repeat, Google continues to make mistakes within China that really is not helping them when the deck of cards are already stacked against them as it is.

Google has some aspirations to be a market leader in China within the next five years:

His plans to achieving that goal is not exactly clear; he did say Google will focus more on social and mobile features in China. Lee is still seeking social networking and mobile partnerships and acquisitions to help gain share. Lee told us this back in October, saying a redesigned Google China is necessary, and mobile is the way Google must go.

Google lost its best chance over two years ago when it moved its operations into Shanghai while still having a site predominantly in English. Now, with the Chinese government behind the scenes pushing for Baidu, which still has a far larger share, I do not see this as being a very likely situation as Baidu knows its market far better along with the ability to ignore international pressure on copyright issues.

Within two weeks of its beta launch, Baidu’s IM Hi already has one million users, but as the China Web2.0 Review notes:

The real challenge is how many percentage of registered users will remain active six month later.

The market here in the US is fairly flat even though there are services out there that allows people to connect across all of them, so it is really not an easy field to break into especially in an environment like this:

Based on the results of China IM Market Quarterly Tracker Q4 2007 by Analysys International, QQ accounts for about 78% market share among totally 390 million active IM accounts in China. MSN Live Messenger has about 19 million active users, accounting for 4.9% market shared, followed by Sina UC (4.1%), Fetion (3.7%) and Aliwangwang (3.1%). Leveraging Alibaba and Taobao’s B2B and C2C service, the No. of Aliwangwang’s active users keep increasing quickly. Its market share increased from 2.5% to 3.1% in last quarter of 2007, according to Analysys International’s tracker report.

Baidu is quite well known in China as being the place to get free mp3s by just searching for songs at mp3.baidu.com and then downloading the song from the respective website. Now, this can be done still in Google with some advanced search commands (eg: filetype:mp3 aerosmith), but what could be done for Baidu specifically?

A search for “Linkin Park” (without quotes) elicits the following (click to expand):

However, if you know a few Chinese phrases–such as the word for song (歌), then the search suddenly changes. Change the phrase to “Linkin Park歌” (once again without quotes) and now you get the following (click to expand):

Click on “试听” and now you have the website showing up along with the ability to hear the song as well.

So much for trying to hide those songs to English speakers.