China Search Daily

From the midnight of June 23th, to the afternoon of 24th, beijing time, Google’s .cn domain and MSN’s .cn domain were hijacked for hours.

All the visits to www.google.cn were redirected to a chinese B2B site, which was owned by a .cn domain registrar. The same happened to MSN and 4 other global brands.

At the year of 2002. Google.com was once hijacked and redirected to Baidu in China.

Some Yahoo China resellers started to complaint.

After the Alibaba-Yahoo deal, real name business and CPC business for Yahoo China became one department, that was Jack Ma’s strategy for Yahoo. Which meant that there would be only one team and one reseller system for this two business. Jack even simplified the yahoo china’s homepage, cut all the portal elements, made it a pure search engine.

But now, Yahoo China back to a portal, just as the same as the Yahoo before deal. Jack’s search engine strategy went home.

Last week, the GM for Yahoo China SME resigned, He took care all the reseller channel management. Real name business and CPC business again back to the situation before the deal, that is each has it own reseller channel and managing team.

Yes, everything back to 1 years ago. The reform failed.

At May, three big resellers of yahoo gave Jack Ma emails. They tried to warn Jack that all their resell business for Yahoo were shrinking. They needed more channel support to win the market share back.

At the first six month of 2006, Hardly any reseller’s performanece reach their targets. That was unusual. The 3721 resellers used to be the most aggresive and fast developing group.

Alibaba should learn from this lesson. Search far more than B2B.

Who is the Number One at Chinese Search Engines market?
The answer is Baidu.

Where is Google China?
Google is the third, right after Yahoo.

Why Yahoo search is the Second?
They still relied on the real name (3721) business. The search performance for them is not as strong as the position indicates.

According to the report of Analysys International, at 1 quater of 2006, Baidu’s market share was 43.9%, Yahoo China was 21.10%, Google China 13.20%. The total market scale for chinese search engine is 303 million RMB, 175 million RMB of which is from CPC, 9 million RMB from  search AD ( fixed ranking ), 120 million RMB from real name search.

Although the real name search still has a big share, their performance is shrinking. Chinese real name search is not a long-term products. The advertisers are losing their interests at Real Name search. According to the two main real name search player, Yahoo China’s 3721 and Zhongsou, their revenue growth is negative now.

Google should speed up its localization. I can see many chinese googlers have international company working experience. They are more global than local.

Take Yahoo China for example, before the Alibaba deal with Yahoo. Leaded by Mr Chou, Yahoo China is very local and aggressive.

Google should find a person like Mr Chou, the former Yahoo China CEO, founder of 3721.

Yes, They came back as what they promised.

This early morning, I rechecked those 3 chinese Search Engines, Sina’s Iask, Sohu’s Sogou, Search of China.com. They all came back.

I did some queries at some products keyword and World Cup 2006. The result were perfect, lots of informations as usual. Even those urls for gambling information site were there and the link at the search engine was live.

Yes, business is business. They did what they said. And they back to the right business track for Search Engines.

Although search engines are always regarded as an reliable information center. I like the search to serve us at our daily life, business or study, entertainment or sports.

Just dont be Evil!

The “updating” is over, everyone back to the chinese playground of search engines. 

Today, I did a routine check at all the chinese search engines. 3 of them posted a notice at their homepage, and saying that there are upgrading.

Sina’s Iask, Sohu’s Sogou, and China.com’s search.

Iask notice:

Sogou notice:

China.com notice:

Its easy to explain the upgrading notice of China.com, because their search is powered by Sogou.

What happened to Iask and Sogou, or What happened to Sina and Sohu. They must be experiencing something.

A little bird told me that this “upgrading” would last for 3 days, from 19th to 21th. And the related resellers all got sorry letters before that from search engines. The letter said that due to some unexpected issue, they would stop the search for 3 days and would provide extra one week service as compensation.

Some rumor said that they might merge each other. I dont believed that. A very reliable little bird told me that, someone will be the Timev Second, and become the exclusive dealer for sou.china.com’s pay search. They had the contract in the hand.

So, the situation is that 3 chinese search engines will take 3 days off each, maybe from 19th to 21th, maybe longer.

Anyway, we still have google, baidu, yahoo, zhongsou and all the chinese search they power.
It’s enough!

Yes, there were several defferent Anti- Unions at recent two years. Anti-Baidu union or Anti-Google Union.

I would like to say that was just another PR show.

The one who launched this union was an 3721 reseller, they dont have any official relationship with google. Sure, they aren’t google resellers. Although they did do some web related business together with 3721 real name search business, they seldom suggestted google adwords to their clients. Yes, they dont have any direct reason to fight google.

The union was a show, I came accross some of the resellers on the list of the union. None of them said they did jion the union. All of them claimed privately to me that they never jion the union.

Some of them were very angried, they said that they partner reseller invited them to a new product luanching event. They just simply replied an “yes” but never go there. Finally the launching event became an anouncement for Anti-google Union. And their companies’ name were on top of the list.

One more thing, none of the members on the list is google reseller.

This was really just a PR show. Someone wanted to make his own reputation by playing a trick to Google or other leading brand in this market.

The search engine business started as search ADs 6 years ago in China. Now only the voice of PPC is loudly.

Search ADs includes Banner, Fixed Top 10 positions and several left side vertical formats. Yes, the ADs types here before were very complicated, even more complicated than portal ADs. Some portals Ads like pop up was once there at search result. Sina used to have the most complicated search ADs formats, and sure later became the most not user-friendly search.

PPC is well-known by the world now.

But I still believe that search AD, or delicated search AD format can be very helpful for advertisers.

The function of PPC is mostly sale leads, the function of search AD is mostly brand awareness.

Zhongsou.com and 163.com still have banner AD at their search result. 21CN, as the most influencial entertaiment broadband portal, launched their Banner AD too.

Brand awareness may benefit from PPC, but will not only from PPC, search AD will still be prodcutive for a long time.

Google anounced it’s 9th reseller today in Beijing.

S-bid is the reseller. I would like to regard them as a pure google reseller.

When you look at their website, you find only six pages. There are index, about us, knowgoogle, ingooglead, work and connection.

Knowgoogle page is an introduction about google; ingoogead page is about google Adword; work page tells us how they serve the client; connection page is the “contact us”.

Such a pure one, so deffirent to former 8 resellers of google china.

Their website looks like a whole new team and reseller just only for google adwords.

If you happened to know chinese, check more google resellers here.

There was a rumor about Dr Li Kaifu, who is global vice president of Google and president for China.

For the recent “blocked” issue, the one who speak to the press and public was Johnny Chou, Greater China President of Sales and Business Development, Google.

Dr Li Kaifu didnt say a word or show his face to the press and public this time. Before, he was the one who represented Google China and acted as sorts of idol.

Several medias quoted some google China insiders words. They were doubling Dr Li’s role in here now. Media reported that Dr Li Kaifu will resign soon.

Today, one reporter called google china’s PR. The answer was ” Impossible”.

Yes, rumor is just rumor. But Adidas says ” Impossible is Nothing “. There is also a chinese saying, no wind no tide. Google really need to improve it PR in China. To deal with all the “blocked” issue and come back to real business. If there is not “blocked” issue, rumors will just go with the wind.

Yes, Li will stay, but for sure, that want be forever.

ShenZhen and Guangzhou are the main battlefields for search engines and related business at southeast of China.
My ShenZhen trip is to meet some friends, visit some B2B searchs and find some real online marketing agencies.

My flight arrived Shenzhen at 8:15am, this picture just to say a “Good morning” to Shenzhen and the industries here.

Reseller want to be agency
Yes, some of the resellers, even they were once top sales at this area for certain search engine or related products, they are concerned a lot about performance for their clients. They are looking forward to begin a real marketing agency.
They start saying NO to some search related products, even to those with high commissions. SEO/SEM tools, strategies and partners are the most frequently discussion between they and my Timev partners.
They are serving their client with simple web building technology and developing/seeking more valua-added performance-oriented services.
Yes, Good moring to Shenzhen, and to all to-be-agencies.

B2B search, SEM AD or Transaction?
On the way from Shenzhen BaoAn airport to downtown. The first and pretty new search related business AD sign was by B2Bchinasources. The Second and quite familliar AD Sign was presented by Alibaba.

For B2B search, Alibaba and Globalsources are sort of Advertiment Model. B2BChinasource base all its services in the theory of SEO. Like us, they called it SEM.
Shenzhen is quite a city in fast development. Factories and exporters’ needs for better ROI is growing.