Qihoo, also known as 360Search and So.com, is the second largest Chinese search engine. By various estimates, it holds between 15 to 25% of the search market share and is fairly popular among younger users.

It is also often noted that Qihoo search results tend to be more accurate than Baidu’s and advertising with Qihoo is also a bit cheaper. Despite once posing a real threat to Baidu’s dominance, Qihoo is still trailing Baidu in terms of overall popularity.

Qihoo Index is the keyword research tool that can be used to complement Baidu’s. Also, it doesn’t require registering an account which makes it a bit easier. Other than that, the functionality and the type of data Qihoo Index generates is quite similar to Baidu Index which was covered earlier.

Here we are using the same keyword “iPhone8” to see the results. The first panel presents the total number of searches and the trends overtime. Just like with Baidu Index, the data can be displayed for the last 7, 30 or 90 days as well as for custom date ranges.

The top panel shows 5,340 searches for iPhone 8 over the last 30 days which is about 5 times less searches on Baidu for the same period.

Similar to Baidu, Qihoo index indicates various kinks, peaks and valleys of the curve with a letter corresponding to a specific media mention. Hovering over those letters opens a pop-up with more details on the source linked to an article:

Another Qihoo Index graph specifically focuses on media mentions. Just like with Baidu, each change in the curve can be further examined for more details related to a specific news source.

The graph above displays search activity in the last 24 hours. Quite predictably, the search reaches two of its peaks in the morning and afternoon with a dip in between (a lunch break?) before flattening out during the night hours.

Next diagram shows related keywords in key phrase surrounding the main keyword. Analogous to Baidu, the keywords are grouped based on search volumes and relevant position:

Related searches data displays the keywords searched by users before or after that specific search term. In this case, “iPhone 8 price” was the strongest related key phrase. Also, users seem to be often searching for iPhone 8 pictures:

Also like Baidu, Qihoo Index also shows geographic distribution of searches. It seems that most iPhone 8 related searches were coming from the richest Chinese provinces and cities which reflects traditional popularity of Apple products in those areas.

Insights into audience are largely similar to the results we have seen with Baidu for the same term: men represent the majority (70% vs. 30%). The age brackets used by Qihoo are a bit different with Baidu: almost half of the people interested in iPhone 8 were aged between 25 and 34.

Another dimension that is available only with Qihoo Index is classification of the users by attributes. Apparently, Qihoo uses other search terms attributed to the same user in order to build what is called “persona” in marketing. Learning more about customer profiles through this method can provide further useful insights for a marketer.

Continue to Weibo Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

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Being the largest search engine in China, Baidu keyword research should be the one to start with. Currently, Baidu offers Baidu Index tool that is free for Baidu advertising accounts, offering some basic information to users.

Here is an example of searching for keyword “iPhone8” (most Chinese users would typically type in “iPhone8” without space between the two words).

First, Baidu Index would match it with a keyword in the database before displaying the data. This means that for some rare keywords or those with low search volumes, this tool may not show any results. For those cases, a more powerful keyword research tool within Baidu advertising account must be used.

The top section shows the numbers for search volumes on PC (25,999) and mobile (20,070). It is remarkable to note that the overall search volume for this particular term is only 20% larger on PC vs. mobile.

Some points on the graph are also marked with letters: A, B, C, D etc. Those can be linked to a particular events such as mentions in media. Viewing the relevant content can give a researcher further insight on what was behind peaks and valleys of the chart.

Next, Baidu Index shows some more data on related keywords and how they are related to the original one in a key phrase (sometimes called long tail keyword). The size of the bubble illustrates the search volume and the color – the relative position.

Manipulating the slider allows viewing snapshots of the related keywords at different time periods. It can also help getting an idea on how the searches were changing over time.

The data is further detailed in the list of top related keywords that come before or after this specific keyword. This panel also lists the sites that have received most hits as a result of this keyword search:

Unsurprisingly, the most common key phrase was about the timing of iPhone 8 release.

Next graph specifically focuses on media mentions of the keyword. From here, user can view the actual article. This helps figuring out which type of news helped driving more searches and which had little to no effect.

The following series of data focuses on the audience. The map below illustrates search volume distribution by province. From here, the data can be further drilled down to the levels of area and city.

Finally, the audience is broken down by age distribution and gender. According to Baidu, iPhone 8 was mostly searched by males between ages of 20 and 39.

Continue to Qihoo Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Baidu Index first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Baidu Index appeared first on Sampi.co.

All of the major Chinese search engines, as well social media platforms, offer some type of basic tools for China keyword research and trends measurement. The latest launch of WeChat Index feature holds a lot of promise. With nearly 890 million monthly active users, it has the potential to offer the most accurate picture of online searches. Unfortunately, it is still severely limited compared to the tools from Baidu, Qihoo and Weibo.

Another missing component in the overall China digital landscape is the absence of shopping trends measuring tool from Taobao, the largest ecommerce platform in China. After launching the beta of Taobao Index at the end of 2011, it was discontinued last year. Alibaba promises to relaunch a better tool in the future but it has already been a year since the original Taobao index went offline.

The first tool we are going to look at is Baidu Index.

Continue to Baidu Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Measuring Search Trends first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Measuring Search Trends appeared first on Sampi.co.

Up until the middle of 2016, Chinese PPC, especially with Baidu, was, on average, delivering better returns than SEO. This was due to several factors:

• First, the search results, especially for popular terms, were dominated by paid ads. In some cases, hardly any organic results would be displayed in the first page;
• Second, there was little visual distinction in Baidu between paid and organic results and most people couldn’t even tell the difference.

Things have changed significantly since the most recent scandal involving fraudulent Baidu medical ads that led to the death of young cancer sufferer. Following public outcry and negative publicity, Chinese government published new rules concerning Baidu advertising that, among other things, recommended limiting paid results to no more than 30% of SERP (search engine results pages).

Also, the new rules require ads to be more easily distinguishable from organic results in order to minimize the confusion between them.

Baidu, as well as other Chinese search engines, have announced their commitment to comply with the new rules (not that they had any choice in the matter anyway). Less advertising space has inevitably led to increased cost of PPC advertising which has made such campaigns more expensive than they could have been in the past.

On the positive side, the quality of ads is supposed to improve which may, at least in theory, increase trustworthiness of paid ads from a user standpoint.

How to choose between PPC vs. SEO for Chinese market

When it comes to SEO, organic results are now guaranteed to feature prominently in Chinese SERPs which makes SEO a more worthwhile investment than it would have been before the new rules were implemented.

On the other hand, you still need to consider different pros and cons of each strategy.

One of the most important consideration is the time frame. Getting results from PPC is almost instant while building SEO traffic takes time. Typically, it would take somewhere between 3 to 6 months to start seeing some benefits from SEO and 9-12 months of consistent efforts to build a stable organic ranking to show up high enough in SERPs. If you can’t wait that long than PPC is probably the best route to choose.

In addition, since the feedback is fast and measurable, PPC is best at testing different keywords to see which ones work better. Tweaking SEO keywords takes much longer feedback loop.

Calculating which strategy would be more profitable also requires knowing LTV (life time value) of a customer. This figure can then be compared to the cost of acquiring that customer with either SEO or PPC. As a general rule, SEO tends to be a better fit for high volume, low LTV cases.

Another disadvantage of SEO for Chinese market compared to PPC that is worth mentioning is its sensitivity to Baidu algorithms changes. When that happens, an optimized site can lose ranking practically overnight which makes SEO an ongoing, hence expensive, effort.

Obviously PPC doesn’t have this weakness since you are paying Baidu for getting visitors bypassing their ranking algorithms.
On the other hand, organic results are generally considered to be more trustworthy and therefore are more likely to be clicked than the ads. Since now Chinese engines are required to implement more visual distinction between paid and organic results, visitors are becoming more aware of which is which and tend to favor organic ones.

Considering the above point, SEO for Chinese market seems to offer the better value in search marketing than PPC as a long term strategy. There is an exception however: if your niche is dominated by established players or authority sites that have been building their reputation for years, it is highly unlikely that you would be able to unseat them. However, if you employ PPC you still may be able to outbid them.
In conclusion, choosing between SEO and PPC requires answering three basic questions:

• Can you afford waiting a few months for the results or time is of the essence?
• How LTV of your customer stacks against the cost of their acquisition with either strategy?
• How competitive is your space and whether you have a realistic chance to achieve high organic ranking vs. existing sites?

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Building a Chinese website for a foreign brand maybe not be as straight forward task as in the case of other markets. Thanks to a unique nature of Chinese internet and various market specifics, brands must modify their approach for establishing China web presence.

Here is the comprehensive list of 15 points to consider for building Chinese websites for brands.

#1 Use native translation for Chinese website

While using native translation should be the obvious rule, a surprising number of foreign companies still cut corners on this one. It should go without saying that companies should always use professional translators to repurpose the original content for a Chinese website version while also making sure that they are proofread by native Mandarin speakers.

#2 Remove links to blocked social media

While re-purposing landing pages for Chinese market, many companies forget to remove standard links to their social media accounts that are inaccessible in China anyway. The links to company Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram links won’t work anyway and but those broken links may also significantly slow down Chinese website loading time. Ideally, a page loading time should not exceed 5 seconds, although that is often hard to achieve with overseas hosting (more on it below).

#3 Optimize your Chinese website loading time

Loading time is almost always an issue for sites hosted outside of China. Unfortunately, without local business registration, hosting in China will not be possible. The next best option would be to get a hosting in Hong Kong. Some Hong Kong based hosting providers would often advertise “fast China route” options without physically having to host on the Mainland’s servers.

Alibaba Cloud is a popular hosting solution that is cheap and easy to sign up for. However, make sure that you select Hong Kong based servers when buying their hosting package.

#4 Embed videos from local platforms

Embedded videos which are hosted on YouTube or Vimeo won’t be displayed in China (see #2). The solution is to setup an account on YouKu, Chinese YouTube equivalent, upload your video there and link to it from your Chinese landing page. However, one should keep in mind that free YouKu accounts will often display pre-roll ads to Mainland visitors. The solution is to opt to paid YouKu accounts or find an alternative video hosting platform that isn’t blocked in China.

#5 Integrate share buttons and links to Chinese social media

If you already have Chinese social media presence on Weibo, YouKu, WeChat or other platforms, make sure to include links to those sites on your Chinese website. As there is no such thing as a “WeChat link”, your Chinese website should display official account’s QR code. This will not only demonstrate to your visitors that you have an established local presence but will also help in getting more followers to your Chinese social media channels.

If your website includes sharable content, make sure to include sharing buttons to Weibo and WeChat that do not require having an account on those platforms.

#6 Localize the contact form

Most website nowadays offer some type of subscription form to collect visitor’s email and other data. What is often missed is localizing such the forms by making sure that all the fields are properly translated to Chinese and don’t have any original English field names which can confuse visitors.

Also, keep in mind that while your English form may have separate fields for first and last names, Chinese equivalent would typically use just one name field for both the surname (one character) and the given name (one or two characters).

#7 Optimize for mobile

Mobile optimization of a website is extremely important for Chinese market as most traffic comes from mobile devices anyway. It’s essential to use responsive design for your Chinese website ensuring that it displays correctly on most types of mobile screens.

You may consider a separate design for a mobile version of the site to pack the most essential info “above the fold” and minimize scrolling and clicking text links.

#8 Live support

Having been spoiled by Taobao, China’s online consumers often expect instant live support for Chinese website. This is especially true for ecommerce or website that offer services.

One of the most critical components for a successful conversion of online consumers is being able to communicate with them in real, or almost real time. Luckily, there are many options available for such live chats that can keep track of the conversations and capture users’ data at the same time. Companies like Alibaba offer their own chat solutions that can incorporates into other sites.

#9 ICP License for Chinese website

If your company is registered in China, it is eligible to apply for ICP (internet content provider) license. It would allow you to get hosting in China that helps improving Chinese website loading time as well signal to your users that are in full compliance with the local law.

The ICP license number should be displayed in the footer like this:

#10 Subdomains or multiple domains

Chinese search engines generally dislike subdomains – something that is very common with multilingual websites. For example, you should avoid setting up en.mysite.com for English and zh. mysite.com for Chinese. Baidu prefers to have different languages on completely separate domains. For example, if www.mysite.com is your main site, www.mysite.cn could be its Chinese language equivalent. This makes it harder to maintain, however, if you want to rank high on Baidu – do not use subdomains.

#11 Using robot.txt file

Another Baidu quirk is disfavoring robot.txt file – Google’s standard way to communicate with search engine crawlers. This is the most common way to tell search engines which pages should not be crawled. For the purpose of your China web presence, those specific instructions should be set in .htaccess file or in server settings. This is another reason to use separate domain for your Chinese site (see #1).

#12 Domain names

Baidu ranks .CN domains higher than the equivalent .COM and.NET. As .CN domain registration is open to foreigners now, there is no excuse not to grab it. Also, once you have established you China web presence and your brand becomes well-known, chances are that .CN domain may become the target of internet squatters. So, if it is still available, register it now.

#13 Blacklisted keywords

If your site uses any of the blacklisted keywords, it will be deindexed by Baidu and probably blocked from access too. Wikipedia keeps updated list of blacklisted keywords that are mostly related to politics but keep in mind that the list may change quickly triggered by specific current events. In any case, staying away from politics in China is probably a good idea anyway.

#14 Using iFrames, JavaScript and Flash

Similar to Google, Baidu can’t crawl iFrames and Flash content. Although Google is getting much better in crawling JavaScript, Baidu is still pretty much blind to it. This means that any of your SEO content should not be in JavaScript which also includes navigation drop down menu. This is why it is a good idea to have a duplicate footer menu that is not JS based. As for iFrames and Flash – they belong to history anyway.

#15 Keep it Baidu-friendly

Due to frequent connectivity problems, Baidu’s crawlers won’t index pages that are too deep in your hierarchy. Keep your website’s architecture flat and accessible.

Anchor text should of course be in Chinese. They should also match the keywords being used on your website. Baidu is quite strict about this and may penalize sites where the anchor text and keywords are not in sync.

Don’t count on Baidu finding your site quickly – it’s better to submit it manually. Since, Baidu doesn’t have an equivalent to Google webmaster tools, the website has to be re-submitted every time there is a major change. Here is the link to Baidu submission tool.

The post Building Chinese Website: 15 Points Checklist first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Building Chinese Website: 15 Points Checklist appeared first on Sampi.co.

Here are the top 10 items on your China web presence check list:

#1: Subdomains or multiple domains

Baidu generally dislikes subdomains – something that is very common with multilingual websites. For example, you should avoid setting up en.mysite.com for English and zh. mysite.com for Chinese. Baidu prefers to have different languages on completely separate domains. For example, if www.mysite.com is your main site, www.mysite.cn could be its Chinese language equivalent. This makes it harder to maintain, however, if you want to rank high on Baidu – do not use subdomains.

#2: Using robot.txt file

Another Baidu quirk is disfavoring robot.txt file – Google’s standard way to communicate with search engine crawlers. This is the most common way to tell search engines which pages should not be crawled. For the purpose of your China web presence, those specific instructions should be set in .htaccess file or in server settings. This is another reason to use separate domain for your Chinese site (see #1).

#3: Domain names

Baidu ranks .CN domains higher than the equivalent .COM and.NET. As .CN domain registration is open to foreigners now, there is no excuse not to grab it. Also, once you have established you China web presence and your brand becomes well-known, chances are that .CN domain may become the target of internet squatters. So, if it is still available, register it now.

#4: Loading time optimization

Long loading time will not only ruin user experience of your Chinese visitors but also lower your Baidu ranking. The best solution is to host in China, however that requires ICP license issued by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and is only available to China registered businesses. Hosting in Hong Kong may improve the loading speed but it still won’t be as fast as hosting in China. Signing up with a reliable CDN provider (content delivery network) service, such as CloudFlare, could be another alternative solution.

#5: Broken links to blocked sites

Links to blocked social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube will appear broken which will slow down the loading as well (see #4). Also, services like Google fonts wouldn’t load causing your fonts look not as intended. Google map wouldn’t work either and YouTube hosted video wouldn’t play. The only solution is to use the local equivalents for blocked services such as Weibo, YouKu and Baidu.

#6: Blacklisted keywords

If your site uses any of the blacklisted keywords, it will be deindexed by Baidu and probably blocked from access too. Wikipedia keeps updated list of blacklisted keywords that are mostly related to politics but keep in mind that the list may change quickly triggered by specific current events. In any case, staying away from politics in China is probably a good idea anyway.

#7:  Keyword research

It is important to do a proper keyword research with the tools available from Baidu rather than Google. Also, the keywords should never be a straight forward translation from English – Google translate or similar tools are absolutely inadequate for this purpose. This is why it is important to enlist help of a professional translator or, at least, run it by a native Chinese speaker.

#8: Using iFrames, JavaScript and Flash

Similar to Google, Baidu can’t crawl iFrames and Flash content. Although Google is getting much better in crawling JavaScript, Baidu is still pretty much blind to it. This means that any of your SEO content should not be in JavaScript which also includes navigation drop down menu. This is why it is a good idea to have a duplicate footer menu that is not JS based. As for iFrames and Flash – they belong to history anyway.

#9: Link building

At the moment, Baidu still values link quantity over quantity, which means that techniques and tricks that used to work with Google 2-3 years ago can still be quite effective for your China web presence purpose. It is quite likely that, eventually, Baidu will follow Google’s approach of putting more emphasis on link quality vs. quantity, after all they used to follow Google’s every step. In any case, for now, back links from anyone and everything would still bring SEO benefits to your site.

#10: Baidu site submission

Don’t count on Baidu finding your site quickly – it’s better to submit it manually. Since, Baidu doesn’t have an equivalent to Google webmaster tools, the website has to be re-submitted every time there is a major change. Here is the link to Baidu submission tool.

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Ideally, if your site is hosted in China, the loading time wouldn’t be an issue for a properly designed website. Unfortunately, hosting on Chinese servers requires obtaining ICP license first, which is only available to local companies. In one of the earlier posts, we have already discussed pros and cons or hosting website in China. 

If you are a foreign based company than you should carefully consider whether your current hosting is the adequate solution for reaching Chinese audience.

How can you test your Chinese website loading time and accessibility without being physically present in the country?

There are many free tools to test website performance in different countries. It comes as no surprise that none of them offers accurate results for China. This is primarily due to heavily regulated nature of Chinese internet and its infamous Great Firewall.

The only tool that works reasonably well, and which we use all the time, is the one by 360 Search company called YiYun. It is completely free and, although, the interface is in Chinese, it is quite easy to use. Here is how it works:

Step 1: go to http://ce.cloud.360.cn/:

Step 2: paste or type in your website in the prompt, then click the green button:

Step 3: give it some time to get data from all the nodes on the network. Once ready, you will see something like this:

The map is self-explanatory: the “greener” it is – the faster is your Chinese website loading time. Grey areas mean that no data is available in those provinces and red is obviously “bad”. For example, testing it with google.com predictably shows that the site is inaccessible everywhere except Taiwan, Hong Kong and, surprisingly, Heilongjiang – the most Northeastern province bordering Russian Far East (must have been a temporary glitch in the Great Firewall):

The table on the right of the map shows top three provinces sorted by faster loading speed:

Each province can be looked in for more details. For example, clicking on Guangdong shows more data for that province:

Below the map, there is more data presented in a table format. Each province shows local ISP (there are only handful government owned ISPs in China), IP address, loading time, connection time, download time etc.

For technically inclined, there is some more data for each locale:

Ping option shows the website’s ping response:

Trace button returns more detailed traffic info:

Finally, there is more info with “dig” option:

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Unfortunately, many websites that are hosted abroad still have a dismal loading time. This, undoubtedly, is adversely impacting their business in the Mainland. In addition, there is always a risk of getting banned and losing Chinese traffic completely if a website has been unlucky enough to share a server with a site that has been blacklisted by Chinese authorities for whatever reason.

On the other hand, hosting website in China is not as easy as it would have been in case of most countries.

What are the Challenges of Hosting Website in China?

First of all, every website that is physically hosted in China must obtain ICP (Internet Content Provider) license from Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

ICP licenses are issued on provincial level and, currently, only Chinese registered businesses are eligible to obtain them. In the past, there was a pilot program in Shanghai that allowed issuing ICP license to some foreign enterprises but, so far, we haven’t heard of anyone getting one.

This policy is unlikely to change in near future as Chinese government seems to be tightening its control over internet rather than loosening it.

On the other hand, registering WOFE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise) type of company in China is becoming much easier and significantly cheaper than it was in the past. Some jurisdictions, such as Shenzhen or Shanghai, have streamlined their process in recent years, significantly simplifying business registration in China.

As an alternative to web hosting in China, doing it in Hong Kong could be considered as a half way solution. The loading speed will most likely improve, although it will still fall short of what it would have been in case of physically hosting website in China.

If you would like to test your website’s performance in China, you could use the tools that we discussed in our post on how to test website loading speed.

The next challenge is related to communication with the hosting company and the tech support. Unfortunately, very few Mainland based web hosting providers offer English control panel or any support in English. Those that do, charge premium for that. So, picking a good Chinese web hosting provider with all the required qualifications could be tricky. Many web hosting companies just don’t see selling hosting plan to individual sites as a particularly profitable business and prefer to focus on large enterprise solutions instead. As a result, there is a major lack of options to host a regular site with the provider that also offers English tech support.

Finally, hosting website in China may still not work as smooth as one would expect. The main reason behind it is the problematic infrastructure of Chinese internet in general that often creates major traffic bottlenecks. The root of the problem is the fact that China’s core internet access is largely controlled by just two ISPs: China Telecom and China Unicom.

Here is the technical explanation from the recent blog by Cloudflare, one of the largest CDN (content delivery network) providers:

“…China Telecom operates many distinct networks across several provinces, many of which operate independently of one another. The interconnection points between these networks, and the ISPs themselves, are also candidates for congestion, with too much traffic paired with too little capacity. The connectivity between different ISPs in different provinces can become so fraught that it is sometimes more efficient to route traffic outside the country, across a third party network, and then back in.”

In fact, in the same article, Cloudflare has announced its partnership with Baidu that will allow them to setup 17 data centers in Mainland China. This can, potentially, become another alternative for physical web hosting in China. Cloudflare even claims to be able to automatically process ICP license applications on behalf of their clients.

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Baidu growth in China has been impressive, although it stayed at somewhere around 60% market share in search engine space last year. With China’s internet users increasingly going mobile, Baidu is right to divert its resources away from the core desktop search business and into mobile applications. 

Things look different for Baidu international expansion ambitions. By his own admission, Robin Li, Baidu’s founder and the 3rd richest person in China, the company has no plans to enter US market in near future. “For Baidu, we choose not to come to the U.S. market first because this is a market that is very different from developing countries,” he said. “For a company to be successful internationally, they don’t need to be successful in the U.S. The U.S. is just one part of the world.”

Back in 2011, Baidu rolled out its search engine version in Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt and in July 2012, that also included Singapore. So far, with the exception of Vietnam where Baidu offers a few more sophisticated products, Baidu hasn’t gained any meaningful market share in those countries. In 2007 the company has launched Baidu Japan but has been losing money ever since never coming close to challenging Yahoo’s and Google’s dominance. To make things worse, the Japanese government has warned users that some of Baidu’s programs could be spyware. Most recently, Baidu has launched the localized Portuguese search engine called Baidu Busca for Brazilian market.

The truth is that what really Baidu excels at is its censorship technology which is very efficient at blocking sensitive topics on the fly.

Baidu boss claims that the right strategy for the company would be targeting developing countries where it could become a more natural fit. Wang Menqiu, head of Baidu’s consumer products claims that “We really understand the common user, not the international, sophisticated user, but very, very normal people. Google tried to assume users take a lot of actions and want to make a lot of choices when they use their products. But in our products, we do it a different way. We first of all assume users are lazy and are naïve. And we try to deliver our products in the simplest way.”

To me, that just doesn’t sound right – while some of that could be true in home market where some elderly users could struggle with using Pinyin or typing complex characters into the search box, none of those issues exist outside of China. What level of sophistication does a user require to type in a search term in a simplistic search engine interface, if it can even be called that? Besides, all of the modern search engines have a voice recognition feature already built-in allowing for searches by simply speaking into the microphone.

So, what is the real logic behind Baidu’s decision to expand into developing market? The truth is that what really Baidu excels at is its censorship technology which is very efficient at blocking sensitive topics on the fly. Baidu is notorious for filtering out the results based on the blacklisted keywords and phrases. And where is the market for that? It surely isn’t in US or Europe but more likely in countries with various degree of government control over media such as Egypt, Iran or even Singapore. Considering the recent political climate, my guess is that Russia could also be on Baidu’s expansion list, although taking on Yandex, the local dominant player wouldn’t be easy.

It is no secret that Baidu international expansion plan enjoys enthusiastic support of Chinese Communist party that considers political dividends and opportunities to influence public opinion overseas. According to Wang Xiujun, deputy director of China’s State Internet Information Center, “the future of our party and country” depends on winning “the struggle for ideological penetration.”

The post What is Really Behind Baidu’s International Expansion first appeared on Sampi.co.

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As of August 2014, Baidu still held 54% of the market, 360 Search was at almost 30% and growing with Sogou following the first two with about 15% of the total market:

Baidu market share overall has been surprisingly stable, remaining essentially flat throughout the first half of 2014. However, some figures indicate that the search volumes for videos, images as well as usage of other Baidu search products appeared to be reduced.

360 Search continues gaining popularity and is widely predicted to reach 35% of market share by the end of this year. It also offers lower prices for PPC compared to Baidu and there is an increasing perception that it returns more accurate search results overall.

Sogou is another service that has been showing various degrees of growth in the last year and it seems to firmly occupy the 3rd place in the market.

In terms of user experience, Google and Yahoo were ranked at the bottom, although Baidu wasn’t ranked too high either. According to the surveys by CNZZ.com, Sogou appeared to provide the best user experience. However, thanks to Baidu extensive ecosystem of related products and apps, it was still ranked at the top based on overall score.

Now, a bit about Google. China has been one of just a few countries on the globe where Google’s market share in search engine space remains insignificantly small. Although, the company had a consistent presence on the Mainland since 2005, its market share has been steadily declining. According to the latest data, it was around 1.3% at the beginning of this year, down from just about 2% a year earlier and compared to 12% in August 2012. The number dropped to the record low of 0.34% in August this year, most likely due to recent blocking of Google services in China in the first half of 2014.

These numbers simply mean that there is no point to optimize your site for Google in China or pay for Google AdWords to reach customers here. Baidu still remains the dominant player and should be the first to focus on in your marketing strategy. If 360 Search continues to keep up its good performance so far, it is likely to occupy a more prominent role in the market. The fact that it still offers better pay-per-click rates combined with highly accurate search results, makes this platform to become more attractive for marketers focusing on China.

The post Search Engines in China first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Search Engines in China appeared first on Sampi.co.