Archive for the ‘International’ Category

Google’s Search Market Share Fallen Behind in Asia? Not Exactly.

July 30th, 2010

Don’t call it a comeback, but Google might actually be gaining a lot of ground in the Asian market very soon. Yes, the Far East (the focus of Reform’s International Search Review series so far) – where only a few months ago Google left China, Yahoo dominated Japan and few people in Korea even used Google at any point – has changed drastically.

Yahoo Japan has about a 57% share of the market there, while Google’s share is just over 35%. Microsoft has a share of about 3%. But with Yahoo and Bing merging results elsewhere and Yahoo Japan being independently owned to some extent (unlike in other markets, the Yahoo Japan branch is actually majority owned by Softbank). As a result, they’ve opted to go with Google instead of Bing for its results, on both the SEO and PPC side. Microsoft quickly protested, citing that Google will suddenly have close to a 95% share of the 3rd largest search market after the US & China, thus monopolising it in a similar way to Microsoft’s dominance of the PC market until recently.

As for China, Google is back to work in the market that they shocked many people with by threatening to leave earlier this year. Only a couple months ago, Baidu was pulling away with a clear lead in one of the fastest growing markets (and potentially largest) in the world.

But earlier this month, Google managed to work out a deal where operations in China could resume through 2012, and the google.cn domain no longer redirected to Hong Kong. But the relationship has been short lived, as while http://www.google.cn/ is back, trying a query as of July 30th takes you to Hong Kong once more. So, the comeback is still a work in progress there. In fact, you can take a quick look at day to day status via http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en

Google has also cut ties with two of the twenty five “authorized advertising agents” in China, which account for most of the paid search spend within China.
Moving over to Korea, where Google’s market share is even lower (under 5%), they’ve worked on a new strategy – going away from search and moving towards mobile and even TV. Working on partnerships with local companies, Google has shown progress in the mobile market there (which rivals such as Naver were late to enter) and are working with companies such as LG and Samsung on integrating search with other forms of media, such as TV, where Samsung is potentially working on launching a Google TV that would run on Google’s Android Operating System.

Still, contrary to what some people felt a few months ago, Google hasn’t given up on Asia yet. And the search market in countries like China, Japan and Korea is still ready for new competition. Find out more about these markets and more via our market research pieces:

Search Marketing in China

Search Marketing in Korea

Search Marketing in Russia

Search Marketing in India – Coming Soon.

Search Engine Marketing in Korea – International Search Review Issue 3

June 18th, 2010

Reform continues on its world tour with issue number three of the “International Search Review.” After the first two issues covered China and Russia, this one looks at a search market that many western marketers struggle to decipher. Download a copy of the full “Korea Search Review” issue here.

South Korea (like China and Russia) is another one of the top ten markets in the world when it comes to internet population and is a market that adapted broadband faster than most western markets – to the point where viewing TV via the internet is far from a new thing. TV might also be the last chance for Google to crack this market, as rumours circulate about Samsung and Google partnering on a TV and mobile internet service – and “mobile search” usage being something that Naver may be a step behind on.

Still, Naver and Daum are the main search engines in South Korea, and SEO in this market is much less of a consideration for marketers here. For one, SEO is not nearly as important – taking up only a small portion of a search engine’s results. At the same time, it’s not nearly as advanced either, as engines like Naver opt to fill the results with links to their own sites, along with various different types of PPC and paid placements listings. Users are content with this, showing a brand loyalty that reflects in browser usage too (Internet Explorer has a 98% share in this market), thus making the chance of changing user preference even slimmer.

Yahoo!/Overture Search Marketing provides the only real opportunity for western marketers to partake in PPC here (though local sites are still given some priority), while SEO has little to do with tags, content and link strength, but more to do with saturation such as via social media and user generated content.

South Korea is also a big market when it comes to online communities, such as gaming and social networks. Over 90% of South Koreans in their twenties have accounts in CyWorld (the biggest social network in Korea), while Facebook and MySpace have failed to crack the market at all. CyWorld has also become a place where companies effectively promote products, including via endorsements that fans can integrate with.

Download a copy of the full “South Korea Search Review” issue here

Key findings in the document include:

- Search engine usage: Naver 77%, Daum 11%, Yahoo 5%, Google 2% (source: Nielsen, Jan 2010)

- 37.5 million internet users (source: Internet World Stats)

- 95% broadband penetration (source: Arstechnica, 2009)

- South Korea’s two main search engines Naver and Daum have inspired a lot of recent western search engine innovation, such as Yahoo! Answers and Google Universal Search, though both engines serve search results that are predominantly paid links and their own sites.

- South Korean search users demonstrate a different attitude to those in the west; users in South Korea anticipate that their search engine knows what they are looking for, and will find it for them, where as western searchers are more ‘DIY’ and use search engines as tools to find something for themselves.

- Commercial or paid-for search coverage is prevalent in this market. Natural search plays little or no role in this market.

Reform also works with sites that are looking for a global SEO strategy in markets such as Korea. The England 2018 Bid website at www.england2018bid.com recently expanded content across various markets, including Korea.

Search result in Daum

As a result, we are now a featured result in natural search there (result in Daum search shown above) and the England 2018 site appears for Korean language variations of “world cup”, making it the second most common language for search traffic on the site in June 2010 so far (after English).

To get more details on this and everything else, download a copy of the full issue – and let us know any comments/feedback. Contact us, and we’ll get the next issue out to you before anyone else gets it.

Update – Latest news shows that Daum is closing the gap on Naver, with various sources cited at http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/07/133_69058.html

Also, at the end of June, Google launched Korean voice search – http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-launches-korean-voice-search.html

While the reviews on how well Google voice search works on your mobile (don’t try using it anywhere loud for instance, such as outdoors) have been mixed, moves like this at least help to give Google some channel that they have a slight advantage on (Google Korea is pushing mobile co-branding as a way to get in this market), so it is something to keep an eye on.

Blog post by Niall Madden, Director at Reform

Search Engine Marketing in Russia – International Search Review Issue 2

February 16th, 2010

Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the first issue of Reform’s International Search Review. Issue number two is now available, as we move north into Russia.  Like China, Russia is a large market where Google is not the search engine of choice, playing second fiddle to Yandex.ru.  As a result, SEO and general search marketing strategies from international companies looking to expand into Russia often find obstacles here.

For instance, it can be difficult for foreign companies to do PPC advertising on Yandex. Their PPC service is known as Yandex:Direct – which has a user interface for accounts that is entirely in Russian. Unless you have a fluent Russian PPC person on your team (and even then), potential advertisers are advised to let Yandex manage the PPC accounts on your behalf. This is known as the “Yandex.Direct Carefree account” – which their site says will provide you with a dedicated, English speaking account manager who will help you create and run your campaign (assistance with keywords selection, composing the ad text and advertising strategy consulting).

The initial take up of broadband was behind the pace of many other markets, but in the recent years Russia has started to really experience a steadier increase, becoming one of the top countries in regards to take up and usage of Mobile internet usage and Social Networking.   Russia is currently the eighth largest country in terms of internet user population, and is set to overtake the UK into seventh place.

Download a copy of the full “Russia Search Review” issue here

Take a look through the PDF and hopefully we can answer any questions about the search market share in Russia, along with the habits of the local internet user population there.

We look at the Yandex natural search algorithm, along with recent changes in Gogo.ru and Mail.ru, which had made an agreement with Google to use their natural search results, but instead opting to build their own algorithm first and using Google’s as a back up. Gogo.ru and Mail.ru do however use Google’s PPC results, which has helped extend its reach (and earnings) there. Considering Google had a 5% market share in Russia only 4 years ago, it has come a long way. But like in China, there are many factors which will try hard to make sure it never crosses the 50% line.

The overall search market share in Russia currently (along with other key stats from the PDF include):

- Yandex – 54.5% (62% when including Mail.ru) / Google 34.5% / Rambler – 1.9% / Bing – 0.4% (Source: Comscore, August 2009)

- 42,000,000 Internet users as of Jan 2010 and only a 33% estimated internet penetration.

- The average user in Russia spent 6.6 hours per month on social networks (highest in the world out of 38 countries that were reported), compared to a worldwide average of 3.7, 4.6 in the UK and 4.2 in the US. (World Metrix / Comscore: July 2009). The top choice of social network was Vkontakte.ru, followed by odnoklassniki.ru and mail.ru – while Facebook was a distant seventh.

- Twitter integration into search results was done on Yandex first in 2009 (before Google or Bing), yet Twitter usage in Russia is still relatively low, holding less than 0.5% of the overall global Twitter market share.

To get more details on this and everything else, download a copy of the full issue here – and let us know any comments / feedback.   Contact us, and we’ll get the next issue out to you before anyone else gets it!

You can also leave a comment below too.

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform