Is Baidu nicking Google’s traffic?

This is a very odd report:

 http://www.pandia.com/sew/549-china.html

Chinese ISPs are redirecting searches made on Google Blogsearch and other search engines to the Chinese search engine Baidu.

It’s not the Chinese government, but the Chinese ISPs.

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.

Now the analysts are writing off Google in China

Google is at last getting some good news in China, the stock market analysts are declaring the battle with Baidu to be over, with Google the loser.  Considering their track record, should I be changing my predictions of continued Baidu dominance?

Google cries Uncle (Sam)

Google desperately wants to break into China.  Google only finds itself falling behind Baidu, at least relatively.  Instead of trying to make their pile in China they are obsessed with being number one. 

Now Eric Schmidt is angling to get the American government to intervene, calling Chinese net censorship a trade barrier.  Then the plan is for the American government to intervene against Chinese imports.

This is mad for two reasons.  Firstly Google could harm American citizens through their special pleading, and these American citizens - even in these protectionist times - may not appreciate this. 

Secondly countries and societies have a perfect right what they wish to restrict.  Google doesn’t like gambling and gun sites, which is commendable.  Almost no country will allow certain types of explicit images - and prosecute people to the ends of the earth for offering or even viewing these.  The American government stops free speech with British gambling sites.

China is no different.  More repressive, yes.  But national sovereignty means that things such as net censorship are rightly the matter of the governments.

Google Bleed Cash in bid to catch up with Baidu

Google are going to go into China with cheque book open, and buying a couple of unannounced companies.  (Thanks to the Multilingual search blog for pointing this out).

Is Baidu the perfect stock?

I tend to avoid investor articles on Baidu, but this one neatly summarises a certain view of Baidu as a big growth stock.  I don’t agree with the idea that Google doesn’t rate, as they have a large share of the high end of the market.

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).

The mechanics of Google and Baidu advertising

A short, but instructive, rundown of the differences between Google and Baidu is on the ebrand marketing site.  The main point is that you have to do your own analytics for Baidu, and the entry ccosts are very high.  The minimal cost per click bids are misleading - unless you are aiming to run your campaign on millions of long tail keywords.

 However the central fact is still there - Baidu owns the Chinese market.

China Search Ads on Webmaster Radio

James Spencer of China Search Ads will be interviewed on webmasterradio.fm on Thursday 12 July Thursday 5pm Eastern Standard Time, 10pm in the UK.  For other times see http://www.worldtimezone.com/

He talks about Baidu, why Google’s not doing well, online payment, what the Chinese online market is like and even a bit about Alibaba.

Will Baidu be bigger than Google?

Robin Li thinks that Baidu is going to be bigger than Google.  What is it with size over specialism?

Google China suffers over this because it ignores the fact that it has the better converting ads (partly because of less click fraud, partly better ad serving technology) and aims to become the biggest.  Are they seriously claiming that they can start offering free MP3s of current bands?  Thought not.

Baidu has succesfully grabbed the Chinese market, and held this off from Google.  It’s even making a decent fist of monetising it.  However China makes up a sixth of the world’s population.  In most of the other five sixths Google rules.  Baidu is making a serious attempt to expand into Japan, but that’s so far the only large foreign market where they have made any serious effort.

China is a fast expanding but underdeveloped market, and Baidu could still maintain a stella rate of growth by concentrating on monetising the Chinese internet market.