Baidu expands, but Google is high end

One of the things that this blog has been saying for some time is that (1) Baidu is going to expand its market share rather than decline and (2) Google is a good bet because it has richer users.

Well the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has come out with another survey showing just this.

Baidu is up again to 74.5% of the search engine share.  Although this looks close to the peak, we have reason to believe that the market share will still increase.

However the interesting story is Google.  TradingMarkets.com report that among educated, older and more prosperous users Google is almost drawing even - which would start to explain why their return on investment tends to be higher than Baidu.

Another post by our colleagues at SEO4China shows a similar story with a reasonably strong showing by Google in tier one cities, average in tier 2 cities and nothing in tier 3 cities.  (They also pick up the importance of the high earners).  Now as the internet goes more blue collar and rural over time, this could mean that Google will lose even more market share.

The problem for Google is that they are simply not prepared to become like Microsoft in the UK or US, a good return on investment but not the market leader.  As we’ve said before, a little less chest beating and more bean counting will do Google well.

MySpace China

Not quite search marketing, but foreign money is still inflating the Chinese market.  Massive advertising company WPP has bought into MySpace China.  Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp allowed this site to develop almost from scratch.

Chinese internet advertising up 32% year on year

Analysys International claim that the Chinese internet advertising market is still growing at a breakneck speed.  (The figures that are quoted seem to be typos.

Another reason why Baidu is top

China Internet Weekly magazine says that Baidu is the fastest of the top 50 sites in China.  (This is taken from a PR wire, so ignore the fluff).

The world’s most read author…

… is a Chinese blogger.

 This isn’t just a story about how Chinese internet usage has reached the big time, but also how relatively homogenous Chinese internet tastes are.  The long tail has still to hit

On the Radio

 Webmaster radio has put up its interview with James Spencer of ChinaSearchAds.com.

Six Mistakes for your Chinese Website

The China SEO blog lists six mistakes for Chinese websites.  In short:

• Building a flash website
• Going cheap for web design, hosting or promotion
• Inexistent or incomplete Chinese translation of your site
• Hosting Overseas
• Not registering with the Chinese government
• Over-relying on Pay-Per-Click to advertise your site

Google advertises in Games

A slightly more general view than usual on this blog.  An entry from Todd Bishop on seattlepi.com talks about Google’s plan to advertise within video games.  This is big for two reasons.  Firstly there’s the general fact that your behaviour in a video game can tell you as much as your search terms can.  The second point is that games are very big in China, in a way that credit cards aren’t - yet.

Gloomy prognosis for Google China

Bloomberg has a rather gloomy article (well for Westerners) about how Western internet companies can never get to the number one spot.  (Google could tell them, if it had any sense, that number two spot is lucrative enough thank you).

Alibaba under fire over shark fins

How’s this for a clash of values?  Sharks are popular in the west.  Shark fin soup is popular in China.  Sharks need to be killed to get the fins for the soup.  Alibaba hosts plenty of sellers of shark fins.  Guess what some westerners think of that?