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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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Here’s one of the areas where Baidu is actually behind in its own market comparative to Google (unlike my previous post on how Google is so far behind in understanding China and in localizing the Chinese market). The China SEO blog has the details on this:

Baidu has been rumored to preparing the launch it’s own IM software. As the leading search engine in China and considering the extensive online properties it owns, Baidu has the potential to establish itself very quickly as a player to count on in this very competitive market.

The most used IM service in China now is Tencent’s QQ. MSN messenger (or Live Messenger, as it is being branded now) ranked at the second spot and is used by more educated or affluent Internet users. Yahoo! messenger and Google Talk appear to be non-factors in the IM industry in China.

I have to admit my bias for any kind of IM client that allows me to interface across multiple services so I can chat with my friends without having to run multiple programs at once. That and what killed me from ever using AIM again were the absolutely annoying ads–pop-ups, video, sound, etc. That and the eventual downgrade of AIM to AIM Triton finally made me move to a client that I could customize–for free!

My point: unless Baidu focuses on those areas (of course usability plays a huge part) good luck breaking into the IM market.

Oh, and I have always enjoyed ICQ/QQ over AIM for whatever reason if it wasn’t for few people using it/my wife deleting it off my computer. :/

Post by: Demerzel’s China and SEO Blog

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It is rather interesting to see Google following the acts of Baidu in China as if Google is the Yahoo/MSN within the US. Google cannot seem to get out there in front and actually do anything new without either changing Google’s MO, copying Sohu, or just being late to the market (eg: Google had no Chinese name in 2005).

So now Google has finally decided to take aim at Baidu:

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So much for Baidu getting preferential treatment as I mentioned before as Universal, SonyBMG, and Warner are now suing Baidu for violating copyright laws:

Three global record companies have launched legal proceedings against China’s top Internet search engine Baidu.com Inc, accusing it of violating copyright by giving access to music files, an international music trade body said.

Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Ltd and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd have asked a court to order Baidu to remove all links on its music delivery service to copyright-infringing tracks that they own the rights to, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a statement.

The claims have been filed with a court in Beijing, said IFPI, which is backed by global music industry heavyweights.

Of course, filing a claim is the easy part and will be a long road in trying to prove their case.

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