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Search engine visibility in China
By Huiping Iler
With China emerging as an economic superpower, more and more
companies are launching Chinese web sites to establish a presence.
The Chinese language has the second largest share on the World’s
Internet market, with English in the top spot, and Japanese
in third.
Who are the main players in China?
Major international players such as Google and Yahoo! all
have a significant presence in China. But, Chinese domestic
search engines still have a much larger market share than
the Chinese versions of Google and Yahoo!. According to survey
results by iResearch (in Shanghai) released in January 2004,
48.2% of participants listed Baidu as their favourite search
engine, while 29.8% named Google. 3721.com has a share of
9.7% and Yahoo! is left with only 3.2%.
Receiving over 60 million search queries a day, Baidu has
a solid lead in the marketplace. In 2004, it received a big
investment from Google (when you can’t beat the competition,
you may as well join it). As a matter of fact, Baidu is not
the only Chinese search company with U.S. investment backing
it. Another major player, 3721.com, has Yahoo! as a major
investor.
According to a report in China Business Weekly, the scale
of the search engine market - including advertising, paid
listings, and real name searches - in 2004, was estimated
at approximately 1.2 billion Yuan (U.S. $145 million), up
from 500 million Yuan (U.S. $60.39 million) in 2003.
High ranking factors
Three factors contribute to the high rankings of sites in
China, in addition to the generally accepted good SEO practices,
such as; relevant content, link popularity, etc.:
• Sites must have Chinese language content
• Sites have Chinese domains such as .cn or .com.cn
• Sites that are hosted in China
Keyword research in Chinese search engines
In China, keyword databases are not as readily available
as those in English such as Wordtracker or the Overture keyword
tool. However, there are some other tools available:
• The Baidu keyword tool: http://d.baidu.com/rs.dhtml
(it doesn’t show the exact number of times that a
term has been searched for, but only its popularity in relation
to other similar terms)
• The Overture keyword research tool is available
for Taiwan: http://www.content.overture.com/d/TWm/ays/index.jhtml
Whether you are developing content from scratch, or simply
having your existing web site translated, it is important
to keep in mind what searchers are looking for and to adjust
your content strategy accordingly. If the translation service
provider you choose is not search engine knowledgeable or
doesn’t understand the importance of keyword relevance,
you may loose traffic as a result. A translator preferred
term, however accurate and stylish, often times is NOT what
searchers are using. It is important to state your plan and
vision for your Chinese web site upfront, and involve your
translation or content development team, from the get go.
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