To kick off the new year, Reform is releasing the first of several in a series of their “International Search Reviews”. The first one concentrates on the search market in China, which is rapidly evolving as we speak – even in the past week or so, where we’ve seen Microsoft announce how its making the market a major priority for 2010 – and how they plan on trying to get a better understanding of what Chinese users need. Download a copy of the full “China Search Review” issue here (updated 13/01/10 with recent info regarding Google’s threat to leave the Chinese market).
And lets not forget Baidu’s announcement earlier this week to team up with Providence Equity Partners, who are an investor in U.S. video-viewing site Hulu – as they look to make a move in the online video marketplace.
We felt that the International Search Review series would be a good way to consolidate research and our own insight into these markets – and also helps answer the many questions people have when trying to find out the market share in China, the user internet population, or the effect of mobile search and social networking in China, the latter of which has proven not only profitable, but to be a lot different than how we may perceive it in the west. For example – we look at how Social Networks in China have found a way to become profitable, without relying on advertising, and how the reasons users go on to social networks are quite different than why people in the UK or US might do so.
The SEO and PPC insights about China takes a look at Baidu’s natural search algorithm, along with their recent change of handling paid search campaigns – via their “Phoenix Nest” platform, along with how search works in the Chinese market, and local perceptions about what SEO and PPC are in the first place. For example, “paid placements” were considered part of SEO.
We also look at what might lie ahead for this market in 2010, as big brands and technologies from the west focus stronger on what is now the biggest internet market in the world.
Of course, if you just want the stats, we’ve got that too - here’s some recent stats about search usage in China.
Baidu 64% / Google 21% / Others 15% (China Daily)
Baidu 62% / Google 29% / Bing 1% (Analysys International)
Baidu 76% / Google 20% / Yahoo & Bing 1% (Comscore – July 2009)
360,000,000 Internet users as of Sept, 09 and only a 25% estimated broadband penetration.
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!
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