China Search Engine Market Share in 2008

There seems to be no stopping the Baidu bandwagon in China as Baidu continued its dominance, according to China Internet Network In formation Center (CNNIC).

76.9% of search engine users in China choose Baidu as its first choice. Google captured 16.6 percent of Chinese search engine users last year, up from 14.3 percent the year before, China’s domain registry center said in the report released early March 2009.

The loyalty of first priority for Baidu search engine has hit 96 percent and other search engines have suffered decline of loyalty, in comparison with that in 2007.The number of Chinese users of search engin e has hit 203 million by the end of 2008, up 33.6 percent over 2007, according to the report.

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Hyves: Strange Way To Check Google Penalty

Mediadonis reports that there is a new way, albeit strange, weird (or whatever you may call it), to check if a site is penalized or banned by Google.

To find out just use the word “hyves” as a subdomain of your website so that if you manage example.com, enter hyves.example.com. Yes, you’d say that it doesn’t exist and therefore should have no PageRank. But Google displays that non existent page’s PageRank value.

Based on a few tests, it was theorized that PageRank values, as shown in Google Toolbar, mean something:

* PageRank 7 – Site is doing fine in front of the eyes of Google
* PageRank 4 – Site got penalized by Google
* PageRank 0 – Site got banned by Google

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Google To Provide MP3 Search Service

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

It appears that Google has joined the bandwagon of providing mp3 search for Chinese users which puts them in direct competition with market leader Baidu. The service will be launched before the Beijing Olympics festivities, according to CRIEnglish.com.

The report said Google China has been testing MP3 searches recently, with the expectation of providing legal copies of musical works.

Insiders mention that the quality of results may be the big distinction between Google and Baidu MP3 search capabilities. High-quality MP3 search results will be available for users. In this way, users can avoid the hassle of choosing from a large number of search results and instead pick fewer results of better quality audio files.

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Broadway Electronics: When Competitor Steals Your Traffic

Broadway, is a popular electronics retailer in Hong Kong. Recently, a survey found that it is one of Hong Kong’s top brands along with I.T and Ocean Park. Popular brands often have positive effects online. No longer will clueless people be clueless. They know what they are looking for; users will not search for “LCD monitor TV” and instead will do a “Sony Bravia”. The same is true for Broadway. If people know the brand they will use it instead of “electronic shop in Hong Kong” and wade through a variety of lower quality results.

However, when I tried a search for “broadway Hong Kong” its competitor shows up. What!??

Broadway Electronics: When Competitor Steals Your Traffic

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Google Maps Hong Kong Now Even More Useful

When I was relatively new in Hong Kong, the old reliable map service I use was Centamap, an online map of Hong Kong developed by Centaline Property. It is quite useful as it has access to bus stops, schools, restaurants and consulate offices.

However, I found that the layout is cramped. But I continued to use it until Google release its Google Maps service. Both layout and features are astonishing. By the time Google added more features, such as shortest routes from one point to another without the Chinese characters embedded on the English interface like in the Centamap site, I made the switch.

Google Maps Hong Kong

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