What do legitimate search engine optimization firms charge? Like most things involving the Web, prices are all over the place but if the price is extremely low you can be assured that the quality of the service will match the price.
If you do a search for SEO pricing from reliable search engine firms, you will find that although prices vary greatly fees of $2,500 per month on an annual contract ($30,000 per year) are not uncommon. Of course some firms will charge less and others will charge a great deal more depending on where they are located, the size and condition of your website, and exactly what services you want them to provide.
Are SEO Costs Worth the Investment?
So what do you get for your $30k ante? Legitimate SEO companies will provide things like target market analysis, keyword analysis, content massaging, code modifications, link implementation strategy, and metric analysis.
And what happens when Google changes their algorithms? Well you guessed it. You have to ante-up again and the addiction continues. Search engine optimization has become the crack-cocaine of Web-based businesses.
Keep in mind search engine optimization's main goal is to increase your visibility and ranking in search engines which assumes more traffic to your website; but the leap from visibility to traffic to sales conversion is higher than you think. The assumption that better search engine visibility and more traffic automatically generates more sales is faulty logic.
Even if increased search engine visibility produces more traffic to your site and even if your website contains genuine content; if the presentation of that content doesn't engage the viewer quickly and if it doesn't hold the visitor's attention for two to three minutes with a compelling and even entertaining presentation, then your chances of converting that visitor to a customer are minimal.
How Much New Traffic Is Needed to Pay for SEO?
Let's say your search engine tactics actually work and they not only increase your search engine ranking but also drive tons of traffic to your site. With realistic conversion rates at about 2-3%, how much traffic do you have to bring in to actually pay for the SEO expertise.
Based on a $30K annual investment in SEO and a 20% Net Profit you must generate $150,000 in new sales just to pay the SEO fees. And at a 3% conversion rate and an average sale amount of $100 per transaction that translates into 50,000 unique new visitors per year to your site just to pay for your SEO strategy, and you still haven't added one cent to your bottom line. You can do the math.
SEO Investment Break-Even Formula
SEO Generated Unique Traffic Break-even = SEO Cost / Conversion Rate x Average Sale x Net Profit Percentage
Determining Your Conversion Rate
Every business has a different Average Sales Amount and generally speaking it is safe to assume the higher the Selling Price the lower the Conversion Rate. In order to figure out what your Conversion Rate is you have to do a little more calculation. Lets say a company brings in a total of $150,000 in Web-Sales and attracts 25,000 Unique Visitors per year and has an Average Sale Price of $395.95; their Conversion Rate would be 1.5%. What's your Conversion Rate?
Conversion Rate = [(Total Web Sales / Unique Web Traffic) / Average Sales Price] x 100
To test the formula, we can check the original example where we have a given Conversion Rate of 3% to see if we arrive at the same rate:
CR = [(150,000/50,000)/100] x 100] Conversion Rate = 3%
The Meaning of It All
After calculating your own numbers, different readers will come to different conclusions. People seem to be mesmerized by complex statistics and bean counter analysis but the hidden meaning behind all the number crunching and mathematical machinations seems clear: if you want to make more money from your website the trick is not where you appear on a search engine or even how many unique visitors you attract to your site, but rather how many of these visitors you convert into customers. If you have a marketing budget, it should be spent on conversions; and conversions are not the primary concern of search engine optimization. What you really want is a strategy that will increase conversions.
How Do You Increase Conversions
MarketingExperiments is a research group lead by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin that studies and analyzes these kinds of Web-related issues. In a recent study entitled "Optimizing Your Landing Pages", they came up with a formula for determining conversion probability. Here's the copyrighted MarketingExperiments formula:
Conversion Probability = 4(Level of Motivational Matching) + 3(Clarity of the Value Proposition) + 2(Effectiveness of the Incentive - Level of Sales Friction) - 2(Conversion Process Anxiety).
I already have a headache, but here's how they explain it in more digestible terms: "... the highest performing Landing Pages are those that match exactly the Motivation of the customer. After Motivation, the clarity with which you express the Value Proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not."(c) Copyright 2007 MarketingExperiments, LLC, You can visit the MarketingExperiments website for more details on their research.
I prefer an even simpler approach to increasing conversions: feature a website presentation that resonates with the needs of a qualified audience and compels action by providing a solution to those needs. Repurpose that presentation in affordable and no cost venues that drives even more meaningful qualified traffic to your site. Easy to say but hard to do, or is it?
What you need to determine is exactly what needs your audience craves and how best to engage their attention long enough to deliver a story that positions your offering as the missing ingredient required to fulfill their desire and ambition.
The Answer and The Future
The answer to delivering this kind of presentation on your website is video that features professional presenters delivering focused, well-crafted messages that motivate action and embed in your visitors' memory. If done right, these videos will resonate with the emotional and psychological factors that trigger human desire and motivation. Like it or not, it is the future of Web-marketing.
Google, Yahoo and all the other search engines understand that the Web has become a far more sophisticated delivery platform than it used to be. Methods are in place to deliver not only video, audio, and multimedia, but also to index and tag it for relevance. For when all is said and done, search engines are in the relevance business. If they can't deliver relevant, meaningful results they are out of business, and no search engine optimization trick, scheme or formula is going to stand in their way.
Those who truly understand the shifting momentum of this reality are already adapting to this new Web-video paradigm - the question is are you?
About The AuthorJerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com/ and http://www.sonicpersonality.com/. Contact at http://us.f533.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Targeted Traffic and How To Get It
Targeted Traffic and How To Get It
If you have a website, you know that traffic is essential, especially if you have something to sell. Not just any old traffic, though - you need targeted traffic.
How is targeted traffic defined? It means website visitors who have a specific interest in the topic of the website. For example, someone who is planning to buy a wedding ring would be interested in jewelry websites.
How do I get targeted traffic? Here are some effective techniques:
Forums:
Whatever your topic, there's sure to be at least one forum about it. Subscribe to a couple of forums. Join in the discussions, answer questions, and ask pertinant questions yourself. Become known as an expert in the field. Then with each article reply you write, have a discreet link to your website in the signature file. What can be placed in your signature is often determined by the forum moderators. Do not spam the forum or you will be stopped from posting. You should be able to get a fair amount of traffic from a popular forum, and the people who click your link will already be familiar with your writing style.
Linking from/to other websites:
Look for websites which are similar to yours (but which do not compete directly). Ask the website owner for a reciprocal link. Be sure to pick link partners who match your customer profile. Try using a software program like Arelis to help you find link partners.
E-Zines:
Buy adverts in ezines that target your market. Perform a test to ensure that the return on your investment is enough to cover the cost of the adverts. You may save a considerable amount.
Newsletters:
Offer your visitors something of value, such as an eBook, in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. Write your newsletter so that it's tightly focused on your subject. You should publish your newsletter regularly, preferably once a week.
E-Books:
Write (or have written) a free informational eBook which you can give away to your clients and others. You can place links back to your website in the eBook.
Joint Ventures:
Online marketers are always looking for products to sell. They may have large mailing lists with eager to buy customers. Usually they will be willing to send an email to their list for a cut of the sale price. This works particularly well with informational products. It has several advantages. It can give a large boost to both your mailing list and sales in a short time.
Buy Expired Domain Traffic:
This may be the most expensive in terms of money, but also the cheapest in terms of time. You will usually get a traffic boost within a month. What is it that you're buying? You are buying traffic from a company which has invested in expired domain names.
They are domain names which are still registered on the search engines which get a certain amount of traffic. The previous domain name owners have not renewed the registration for whatever reason. The traffic from the expired domain name is redirected to your website. This is usually high quality traffic as only expired domains with relevant traffic is redirected to you. As always, you should undertake a test run to see if this traffic is suitable.
When you combine these techniques and apply them consistently over time you will find a rich source of targeted traffic coming to your website. This, combined with quality products will ensure the success of your online business.
About the Author: Mike Devoran is the publisher of DJTraffic.com, a website devoted to improving your website traffic.
If you have a website, you know that traffic is essential, especially if you have something to sell. Not just any old traffic, though - you need targeted traffic.
How is targeted traffic defined? It means website visitors who have a specific interest in the topic of the website. For example, someone who is planning to buy a wedding ring would be interested in jewelry websites.
How do I get targeted traffic? Here are some effective techniques:
Forums:
Whatever your topic, there's sure to be at least one forum about it. Subscribe to a couple of forums. Join in the discussions, answer questions, and ask pertinant questions yourself. Become known as an expert in the field. Then with each article reply you write, have a discreet link to your website in the signature file. What can be placed in your signature is often determined by the forum moderators. Do not spam the forum or you will be stopped from posting. You should be able to get a fair amount of traffic from a popular forum, and the people who click your link will already be familiar with your writing style.
Linking from/to other websites:
Look for websites which are similar to yours (but which do not compete directly). Ask the website owner for a reciprocal link. Be sure to pick link partners who match your customer profile. Try using a software program like Arelis to help you find link partners.
E-Zines:
Buy adverts in ezines that target your market. Perform a test to ensure that the return on your investment is enough to cover the cost of the adverts. You may save a considerable amount.
Newsletters:
Offer your visitors something of value, such as an eBook, in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. Write your newsletter so that it's tightly focused on your subject. You should publish your newsletter regularly, preferably once a week.
E-Books:
Write (or have written) a free informational eBook which you can give away to your clients and others. You can place links back to your website in the eBook.
Joint Ventures:
Online marketers are always looking for products to sell. They may have large mailing lists with eager to buy customers. Usually they will be willing to send an email to their list for a cut of the sale price. This works particularly well with informational products. It has several advantages. It can give a large boost to both your mailing list and sales in a short time.
Buy Expired Domain Traffic:
This may be the most expensive in terms of money, but also the cheapest in terms of time. You will usually get a traffic boost within a month. What is it that you're buying? You are buying traffic from a company which has invested in expired domain names.
They are domain names which are still registered on the search engines which get a certain amount of traffic. The previous domain name owners have not renewed the registration for whatever reason. The traffic from the expired domain name is redirected to your website. This is usually high quality traffic as only expired domains with relevant traffic is redirected to you. As always, you should undertake a test run to see if this traffic is suitable.
When you combine these techniques and apply them consistently over time you will find a rich source of targeted traffic coming to your website. This, combined with quality products will ensure the success of your online business.
About the Author: Mike Devoran is the publisher of DJTraffic.com, a website devoted to improving your website traffic.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
How to Get Free Publicity For Your Website
If you want to promote your product or service, then consider using public relations. The best part of PR is that it costs nothing. In fact, public relations is one of the best kept secrets of small business owners who are successful. Use these powerful techniques to get picked up by local and national media.
1. Be an expert.
The media relies on experts for their information. The news that gets printed is only as credible as the source from which it comes. Begin by selecting a news related story to comment on. It should be a story that you are qualified to speak about, aligned with your area of expertise.
If your background is in engineering, and a building falls down, you are qualified to speak about the structure and answer possible engineering related questions. Being an expert simply means that you have a background in a specific area and can lend your expertise.
2. Research the reporter.
To get coverage, find the reporter who is covering the news you wish to comment on. For example, if the news is about a specific current event, then Google the current event name followed by the name of a popular newspaper like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. You'll quickly find the reporters who have written on the subject. Call the newspaper (contact information available on their website) and ask for the reporter by name. If the operation asks what your call is in reference to, simply state that you have information related to a specific news item.
3. Compliment the reporter.
When you locate the reporter, and contact him, start with a compliment. Reporters take great pride in their work. Be sure to compliment their position on a given topic or their previous work. After complimenting them, you're ready for the pitch.
Talk to them about your position on the given news story and what you have to offer. Again, referring back to our earlier example of the building, mention that you have an engineering background and have a position on the story. For example, you might be able to comment on why buildings collapse and the structural aspects that could be the cause. Let the reporter ask questions but have a point of view. After the dialogue, the reporter will verify your information such as name and company.
4. Leave a compelling yet non-descript message.
If you're unable to get in touch with the reporter directly, leave a message - but be discreet. You don't want to show all of your cards before speaking to him directly. However, if you leave enough information to get them to return your call, they will call you. Reporters follow up with any leads they consider opportunistic.
When leaving a message, simple say, "I have something you need to hear about (fill in name of story here)." Be specific with regard to the story the reporter is covering. You want them to consider your possible information valuable.
5. State your expertise.
After complimenting the reporter about their coverage on a specific article or issue, let them know your position on a given topic and why you are qualified to comment on it. Give them your pitch and be confident that your opinion matters base on the experience you have to offer.
In today's environment, it's difficult to attract the media's attention. The best way to get PR for your product or service is by commenting on current stories being covered by the media. The process is simple. When you hear a news story that you can comment on, find the reporter using Google and the name of a major publication.
Research some of the reporter's previous articles for background and then contact him directly. Let him know that you have some information that he may find valuable or a comment relevant to the story. Be sure to provide him with your credentials. Lastly, be persistent. Continue to reach out to the media and soon they'll be calling you for advice.
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert who has been featured on The TODAY Show and Bloomberg Radio. Discover how to improve search engine rankings at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.
1. Be an expert.
The media relies on experts for their information. The news that gets printed is only as credible as the source from which it comes. Begin by selecting a news related story to comment on. It should be a story that you are qualified to speak about, aligned with your area of expertise.
If your background is in engineering, and a building falls down, you are qualified to speak about the structure and answer possible engineering related questions. Being an expert simply means that you have a background in a specific area and can lend your expertise.
2. Research the reporter.
To get coverage, find the reporter who is covering the news you wish to comment on. For example, if the news is about a specific current event, then Google the current event name followed by the name of a popular newspaper like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. You'll quickly find the reporters who have written on the subject. Call the newspaper (contact information available on their website) and ask for the reporter by name. If the operation asks what your call is in reference to, simply state that you have information related to a specific news item.
3. Compliment the reporter.
When you locate the reporter, and contact him, start with a compliment. Reporters take great pride in their work. Be sure to compliment their position on a given topic or their previous work. After complimenting them, you're ready for the pitch.
Talk to them about your position on the given news story and what you have to offer. Again, referring back to our earlier example of the building, mention that you have an engineering background and have a position on the story. For example, you might be able to comment on why buildings collapse and the structural aspects that could be the cause. Let the reporter ask questions but have a point of view. After the dialogue, the reporter will verify your information such as name and company.
4. Leave a compelling yet non-descript message.
If you're unable to get in touch with the reporter directly, leave a message - but be discreet. You don't want to show all of your cards before speaking to him directly. However, if you leave enough information to get them to return your call, they will call you. Reporters follow up with any leads they consider opportunistic.
When leaving a message, simple say, "I have something you need to hear about (fill in name of story here)." Be specific with regard to the story the reporter is covering. You want them to consider your possible information valuable.
5. State your expertise.
After complimenting the reporter about their coverage on a specific article or issue, let them know your position on a given topic and why you are qualified to comment on it. Give them your pitch and be confident that your opinion matters base on the experience you have to offer.
In today's environment, it's difficult to attract the media's attention. The best way to get PR for your product or service is by commenting on current stories being covered by the media. The process is simple. When you hear a news story that you can comment on, find the reporter using Google and the name of a major publication.
Research some of the reporter's previous articles for background and then contact him directly. Let him know that you have some information that he may find valuable or a comment relevant to the story. Be sure to provide him with your credentials. Lastly, be persistent. Continue to reach out to the media and soon they'll be calling you for advice.
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert who has been featured on The TODAY Show and Bloomberg Radio. Discover how to improve search engine rankings at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Google AdSense For Video Hits Beta
Big publishers (and Bob Vila) take noteThis time, Google's beta tag means something - to become a user, publishers will need to have English-language, U.S.-based sites, and serve at least one million video streams per month. But, beta tag or not, AdSense for video has officially arrived.Google has promised that it will expand the program "in the near future." Meanwhile, sites like BobVila.com, MyDamnChannel, and blip.tv are getting to experience a sort of test drive. And for a description of what they're seeing (we're assuming you don't want to chase down and sit through random videos), we can turn to the Official Google Blog.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Interview with Matt Cutts on Search and SEO in China
Matt Cutts mentioned in his blog on Mar 17, 2007, “I still have an email interview with a blogger that I’m trying to finish that started in September 2006″.
So here you go, it’s finished
In the interview with Matt Cuts about search and SEO in China, Matt and his “top Chinese webspam engineer”, Jianfei，answered my long list of questions with great tips and insights.
It is helpful to all SEOers and online marketers.
Special thanks to Philipp.
Chinese version is here.
Zac: First of all thank you guys for doing this interview with me, I believe it will be very helpful for SEOers and web marketers in China.
There are currently lots of misunderstandings about SEO in China. The first thing that pops up in mind is “spam” when people hear the word SEO. Some say “SEO is shortsighted and is like suicide”. From search engine’s point of view, is that true? Is SEO hated, allowed or encouraged by Google? We’re talking about whitehat SEO here.
Matt: It’s a common mistake to think that search engines don’t like SEO. The fact is that SEO within Google’s quality guidelines is okay. That includes things like making sure that your site is crawlable, thinking of words that users would use when searching and including them naturally within the content of the site, and doing things like making sure that page titles and urls are descriptive.
What Google (and other search engines) don’t like is when someone tries to cheat or take a short cut to show up higher than they should. When a site violates our quality guidelines, Google calls that spam.
Zac: Google announced its official Chinese name “Gu Ge” (Harvest Song) in April 2006 however the majority of Chinese users do not seem like the new name.
According to China Internet Network Information Center, CNNIC, Google is losing market share from 33% last year to current 25.3%.
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;836499436;fp;2;fpid;1
What do you think of the market share drop?
Jianfei (朱健飞): For the market share, let’s refer the statement from Kaifu Lee, the president of Google China office. “To some extent, the survey could have some errors. Different users have different frequencies of using search engines. People may use search engines 10 times a day, while other people may use search engines once a day. Simple sampling methods may not show the real traffic of different search engines.”
Zac: I noticed there are Chinese employees in Google headquarter. Any idea how many Chinese in Googleplex now? How are they doing? Any advice for Google fans who want to join Google?
Jianfei: We do have many Chinese engineers at the Googleplex. They are doing great. You can visit http://www.googlechinablog.com/ and read some Chinese engineers’ articles about their life at Google.
For Google fans who want to join Google, they can go to http://www.google.cn/jobs/ and check available jobs. If they can not join Google, they still can give us suggestions and ideas. Their support is important to us. For reporting spam sites, they can go to http://www.google.cn/contact/spamreport.html.
Matt: In fact, if you sign up for Google’s Webmaster Central at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ , you can also use the form athttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-cnhttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-twto report spam. In addition, if you don’t want to sign up for Google account, you can also report spam here:http://www.google.cn/contact/spamreport.htmlhttp://www.google.com.tw/contact/spamreport.html
However, I recommend that you use one of the first two links. Google gives more weight to spam reports that are done with our Webmaster Central.
Zac: Let’s talk about duplicate content, which is a hot topic recently.
I see much more content copying on Chinese web sites. Many Chinese webmasters like to “gather” contents from other web sites, either using software or by hand, then publish on their own web sites. Does Google penalize these sites full of contents you can see everywhere? Is there a percentage or threshold, exceeding which penalty is applied?
What should the original author do so that the original is recognized as so?
Jianfei: We have noticed that some Chinese web sites have a lot of duplicate content. Users like to get different search results, so Google is looking at how best to provide diverse results. Our algorithms already have some ways of removing duplicate content, and we will continue to look for ways to improve.
Zac: Some web sites use multiple domains with exactly same content , for example, domain.com and domain.com.cn. Is this risky? What’s the best way to do it?
Matt: If the content is truly the same, I would pick one domain and make the other domains do a redirect to the domain you prefer. For example, google.com could do a permanent (301) redirect to www.google.com, and then we would see that and generally choose the destination of the redirect. Having content from two different domains isn’t risky if they are in different languages (for example, Chinese and English), but if you have the exact same content on two different domains, it’s better to use a permanent redirect from the duplicate domains to a single preferred domain.
If you have mirror pages without a redirect, that can cause issues. It’s better to use 301/permanent redirects, because Google might choose to remove or not to show the copy that you liked the best.
Zac: I have been talking about good original content in my blog and the message is well received by SEOers in China. However the problem is, as many readers ask me, my company sells, say a “glass edge grinding machine”, it’s simply boring, what interesting content can I write about it? Could you give some tips in content development for this type of highly specialized products?
Matt: Don’t forget that creativity can really help. For example, there was a site that made industrial blenders, which sounds like a very boring subject. But now go watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM94aorYVS4 and you’ll see something amazing. They threw all kinds of different objects into the blender to prove how powerful their machine was.
It’s true that heavy machinery or industrial sites might sound boring at first, but by looking for a creative angle, you can often raise interest in your company. Even things like newsletters, blogs, information about an industry, or other resources can serve as a reason for people to get interested in your site and link to you.
Zac: The highest PR we can find on Chinese web site is PR8. Is there discrimination against Chinese sites in terms of PR? If not, why don’t we see PR9 or even better PR10 Chinese sites? Does PR still matter for ranking in the first place?
Matt: PageRank does depend on the link structure of the web, but I wouldn’t be discouraged if you don’t see PR9 and PR10 sites. For one thing, Chinese sites are usually only ranking against other similar Chinese sites, so the playing ground is level. It’s also important to remember that Google has a finer scale to measure PageRank (not just from 1 to 10), so even two different sites that both have a PR6 in the toolbar can actually have different PageRanks.
The fact is that Google does special work to help measure reputation in non-English languages.
Zac: Is there a significant difference between Chinese site SEO and English site SEO? Are there differences in your algorithm for different languages?
Matt: I think that every country does have some differences in how they do SEO. In Germany, people are more likely to use hyphens in their domain names, for example. Some countries lean more toward monetizing via affiliate programs; other countries may monetize more via cell phones than credit cards, because credit cards aren’t equally common in every country. But there are many common ways that SEOs operate.
Jianfei: One main difference between Chinese site SEO and English site SEO is the set of queries they are working on. For example, “viagra” is one of the most spammy queries for English, while “手机铃声” (ringtone) is a more spammy query for Chinese. Another difference is that almost all mid- or large-sized Chinese domains have blogs, which is not the case for other languages.
Zac: Adwords users in other countries normally sign up for Adwords account directly with Google. However Google takes different approach in China, partnering with Adwords agents, kind of localized way as all PPC providers in China do the same.
Why did Google choose this localized approach and did not stick to your direct relationship with advertisers which has been proven to be successful worldwide? Do you consider your Adwords program in China a success?
Matt: I’m sorry to say that I’m not an AdWords expert, but I do know that Google tries to adapt to each market and present products in the way that works best for every country. I’m proud of the AdWords team, and I think that they’re doing a really good job in China.
Zac: Some SEOs believe that freshness plays an important role in Google ranking. Many think blogs are easier to rank better due to freshness. Yet some SEOs think it’s not a good idea to tweak web pages frequently.
What do you suggest? Update web pages often, or no?
Matt: It depends on the industry that you are in. I would do whatever makes the most sense for your users. Just changing a page more often for the sake of having a page change is probably not very productive. But if you have a blog, then posting more often might attract more users. So for some people it might make sense to change the page less often (a manufacturing company, for example), while for some people it will make sense to change the page often to attract more visitors (e.g. if you are a blogger).
Zac: Is SEO service a reliable business model that you would recommend to SEOers in China? I ask this because there’s very very few established and reputable SEO companies in China. Many companies claim they provide SEO services but what they actually do is spamming forums and blogs.
Ethical individual SEOs are struggling to survive.
I believe you know plenty of successful SEO companies. In China, do we have a future ahead of us in SEO industry? How can we grow, from individual to reputable SEO company?
Jianfei: I think if SEOs can follow Google’s quality guidelines, then that SEO can have great future. Search engine results are important to the industry, and there can be a lot of market demand for an ethical company.
Matt: If you are considering using an SEO, it’s very important to think about the long-term. It doesn’t help to get a spike in users if Google or other search engines will find spam and remove a site. One thing you can do is ask for references or see if a company can provide success stories where the SEO provided stable long-term traffic. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&hl=cn is a good document to read about how to research SEOs. Unfortunately, there are some SEO services that will spam if you hire them, and you should try to avoid them in the first place.
Zac: There’re lots of talk about trusted domain and authority sites. If a site is considered authority, it will be ranked higher in Google, more people find it and more links, then it becomes even stronger.
How should mom-and-pop sites overcome this situation and compete with authority sites? Besides building a great site with tons of useful original contents, is there a shortcut?
Matt: I wouldn’t try to tackle a huge keyword if you’ve just created your small mom-and-pop business. Instead, concentrate on a smaller niche where you can get to be known as an expert. As you get to be more well-known, then you can work from the smaller niche up to bigger and bigger areas. Many successful sites start out small and then build their way up. Also, the more creative or funny or helpful you can be, often that will help people become aware of you faster.
Jianfei: For example, your site http://www.chinamyhosting.com/seoblog/ , is such a site. One year ago, the site was not as well-known. But through your hard work and creative effort, now it ranks well for the query [搜索引擎优化排名] (search engine optimization) which is an impressive feat.
Zac: Have you ever been to China? If you do plan to visit China, there’re thousands of fans who would like to meet you in person.
Jianfei: I was born in China, in the last year I’ve been to China twice, plus I enjoy working with people at the Google China office.
Matt: I’m sorry to say that I’ve never been to China. My mother has been to China several times, including Yangshuo (Guilin), and my wife has been once, and they both speak a little Chinese even though they’re both American. So clearly I need to work on getting over there; I hear that it’s an amazing country, so I’d love to visit some day.
I won’t be able to make it to SES China this year, but I’m really excited that I think Jianfei or another Google representative will be able to represent Google at SES China. Jianfei is a top-notch member of the webspam team and he’s a much smarter expert on Chinese webspam than I am.
Zac: Everyday I see link spams in my blog. Will link spam in blogs and forums cause penalty or they are simply ignored by Google therefore have no effects on ranking?
Jianfei: Actually, it can be dangerous to do link spam. If Google finds a company is doing link spam, it may remove the company’s site from our index. Google may not re-include the site unless we don’t see the spam links anymore. In most case, removing links is even more difficult than adding links (e.g., the links posted on blogs, BBS by spamware), so it’s better to stay away from link spam.
Matt: Usually Google is good enough that we just try to ignore link spams. When we can tell that a company did link spams, we can take appropriate action.
Zac: Another topic in all SEO forums and blogs is supplemental result. If more and more pages of a domain are dumped into supplemental result, does it mean the domain is losing trust? Would you worry about supplemental result if your SEOer instead of Googler?
Matt: I wouldn’t worry about supplemental results. If your site has lower PageRank then it may occur in our supplemental index, but that doesn’t mean that the site has a penalty or is losing trust. Usually that just means that if you get a few more high-quality links because your site is good, then we will include more pages from your site in our main web index.
In addition, we have been getting better at refreshing our supplemental index more often and showing those results to more users, so webmasters can often start to see more traffic coming to supplemental results pages now.
Zac: Baidu is your biggest competitor in search market of China. It’s said that they have better search technologies than Google in certain fields such as Chinese word segmentation.
On the other hand, Google has been recruiting top talent in China. I read somewhere that the engineering team at Google China has yet contributed much to the core ranking algorithm. Do you plan to localize the algorithm to better suit Chinese language? What’s your technical advantage compared with Baidu?
Jianfei: As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on specific competitors. We welcome competition that helps deliver useful information to users and expands user choice. Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space - it makes us all work harder and at the end of the day our users benefit from that.
Matt: We don’t talk much about our ranking because it’s confidential, but the China office has contributed in several ways to how Google does ranking. In fact, some really nice applications such as http://www.google.cn/rebang/home are seen in China before other places. That’s a brand-new product developed in China.
Zac: If you don’t mind, Matt, are you GoogleGuy at WebmasterWorld as hinted? Google is doing great job communicating with webmasters and we appreciate. Is there any chance that an engineer in Google China team can take similar role to communicate actively with Chinese webmaster community?
Matt: I don’t think we’ve confirmed the official identity of GoogleGuy, and that’s okay because it means that if GoogleGuy ever needs to take a break, someone new can come in to help communicate. The truth is that I get more credit than I deserve. A lot of communication in English happens from a lot of people: Vanessa Fox, Adam Lasnik, and many, many others.
And in Chinese, I’m very lucky to work with a great team of people such as Jianfei, plus other wonderful people in Mountain View (California USA) and Beijing. My guess is that over time, Google will begin to communicate more and more with Chinese webmasters. This joint interview is a good step forward.
Zac: There’re debates in China, what role should SEO play in the bigger picture for web sites? Is SEO an important part of web marketing and ecommerce? Some web marketers think SEO is piece of cake, write title tag, add keywords here and there, things like that.
Do you think nowadays SEO has gone one step further and act as kind of web marketing consultant? In other words, SEOers should help clients streamline online sales process, find target market, content development, user experience, viral marketing, etc. This is the concept I’m trying to spread. In the end, users need a great site, not great code.
Matt: I agree that SEO in many cases is about making a great site, not just getting the web design or the code just right. SEO does include getting the right tags and code in place, but that’s just the first step. If you can come up with a great viral marketing campaign or something that gets people talking about your site with word of mouth, that’s SEO as well, and is a much better way to get links than trying to use spamware programs, for example.
In many ways, SEO is about making sure that users have a great experience, because if you make a great site, that’s going to help a site rank better in search engines naturally.
Zac: Do you foresee big changes in terms of SEO in the coming few years?
Matt: I think personalization and localization are big trends. If we can return different results for the same query because Google knows a little more about you, that may be a really big quality win for users. That will make SEO a little harder, but SEOs who care about long-term value will be quite happy about personalization, because they’ll get visitors who are more interested in their site, and those visitors may convert into buyers.
Jianfei: Of course, Google is also going to continue to pay a lot of attention to quality and SEO. Over time, I think Chinese SEOs will find that it’s easier to make great sites that agree with our quality guidelines, because Google will continue to work hard to stop spam.
Zac: Do you like Chinese food?
Matt: I love Chinese food! I hear that Chinese food in the United States isn’t quite the same though, so maybe some day I’ll get a chance to experience real Chinese food. I’d like to try some Peking duck, for example. Thank you for asking these interesting questions!
Zac: Thank you Matt and Jianfei.
Matt: Thank you! We’d love for people to report Chinese spam athttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-cnhttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-twand to use our webmaster tools as well. There’s also a lot of information for Chinese webmasters at http://www.google.cn/support/webmasters/ . We’ll also continue to listen to Chinese webmasters and try to respond.
We enjoy reading at sites like http://www.seobbs.net/ , http://www.dunsh.org/ and of course we also enjoy http://www.chinamyhosting.com/seoblog/
So here you go, it’s finished
In the interview with Matt Cuts about search and SEO in China, Matt and his “top Chinese webspam engineer”, Jianfei，answered my long list of questions with great tips and insights.
It is helpful to all SEOers and online marketers.
Special thanks to Philipp.
Chinese version is here.
Zac: First of all thank you guys for doing this interview with me, I believe it will be very helpful for SEOers and web marketers in China.
There are currently lots of misunderstandings about SEO in China. The first thing that pops up in mind is “spam” when people hear the word SEO. Some say “SEO is shortsighted and is like suicide”. From search engine’s point of view, is that true? Is SEO hated, allowed or encouraged by Google? We’re talking about whitehat SEO here.
Matt: It’s a common mistake to think that search engines don’t like SEO. The fact is that SEO within Google’s quality guidelines is okay. That includes things like making sure that your site is crawlable, thinking of words that users would use when searching and including them naturally within the content of the site, and doing things like making sure that page titles and urls are descriptive.
What Google (and other search engines) don’t like is when someone tries to cheat or take a short cut to show up higher than they should. When a site violates our quality guidelines, Google calls that spam.
Zac: Google announced its official Chinese name “Gu Ge” (Harvest Song) in April 2006 however the majority of Chinese users do not seem like the new name.
According to China Internet Network Information Center, CNNIC, Google is losing market share from 33% last year to current 25.3%.
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;836499436;fp;2;fpid;1
What do you think of the market share drop?
Jianfei (朱健飞): For the market share, let’s refer the statement from Kaifu Lee, the president of Google China office. “To some extent, the survey could have some errors. Different users have different frequencies of using search engines. People may use search engines 10 times a day, while other people may use search engines once a day. Simple sampling methods may not show the real traffic of different search engines.”
Zac: I noticed there are Chinese employees in Google headquarter. Any idea how many Chinese in Googleplex now? How are they doing? Any advice for Google fans who want to join Google?
Jianfei: We do have many Chinese engineers at the Googleplex. They are doing great. You can visit http://www.googlechinablog.com/ and read some Chinese engineers’ articles about their life at Google.
For Google fans who want to join Google, they can go to http://www.google.cn/jobs/ and check available jobs. If they can not join Google, they still can give us suggestions and ideas. Their support is important to us. For reporting spam sites, they can go to http://www.google.cn/contact/spamreport.html.
Matt: In fact, if you sign up for Google’s Webmaster Central at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ , you can also use the form athttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-cnhttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-twto report spam. In addition, if you don’t want to sign up for Google account, you can also report spam here:http://www.google.cn/contact/spamreport.htmlhttp://www.google.com.tw/contact/spamreport.html
However, I recommend that you use one of the first two links. Google gives more weight to spam reports that are done with our Webmaster Central.
Zac: Let’s talk about duplicate content, which is a hot topic recently.
I see much more content copying on Chinese web sites. Many Chinese webmasters like to “gather” contents from other web sites, either using software or by hand, then publish on their own web sites. Does Google penalize these sites full of contents you can see everywhere? Is there a percentage or threshold, exceeding which penalty is applied?
What should the original author do so that the original is recognized as so?
Jianfei: We have noticed that some Chinese web sites have a lot of duplicate content. Users like to get different search results, so Google is looking at how best to provide diverse results. Our algorithms already have some ways of removing duplicate content, and we will continue to look for ways to improve.
Zac: Some web sites use multiple domains with exactly same content , for example, domain.com and domain.com.cn. Is this risky? What’s the best way to do it?
Matt: If the content is truly the same, I would pick one domain and make the other domains do a redirect to the domain you prefer. For example, google.com could do a permanent (301) redirect to www.google.com, and then we would see that and generally choose the destination of the redirect. Having content from two different domains isn’t risky if they are in different languages (for example, Chinese and English), but if you have the exact same content on two different domains, it’s better to use a permanent redirect from the duplicate domains to a single preferred domain.
If you have mirror pages without a redirect, that can cause issues. It’s better to use 301/permanent redirects, because Google might choose to remove or not to show the copy that you liked the best.
Zac: I have been talking about good original content in my blog and the message is well received by SEOers in China. However the problem is, as many readers ask me, my company sells, say a “glass edge grinding machine”, it’s simply boring, what interesting content can I write about it? Could you give some tips in content development for this type of highly specialized products?
Matt: Don’t forget that creativity can really help. For example, there was a site that made industrial blenders, which sounds like a very boring subject. But now go watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM94aorYVS4 and you’ll see something amazing. They threw all kinds of different objects into the blender to prove how powerful their machine was.
It’s true that heavy machinery or industrial sites might sound boring at first, but by looking for a creative angle, you can often raise interest in your company. Even things like newsletters, blogs, information about an industry, or other resources can serve as a reason for people to get interested in your site and link to you.
Zac: The highest PR we can find on Chinese web site is PR8. Is there discrimination against Chinese sites in terms of PR? If not, why don’t we see PR9 or even better PR10 Chinese sites? Does PR still matter for ranking in the first place?
Matt: PageRank does depend on the link structure of the web, but I wouldn’t be discouraged if you don’t see PR9 and PR10 sites. For one thing, Chinese sites are usually only ranking against other similar Chinese sites, so the playing ground is level. It’s also important to remember that Google has a finer scale to measure PageRank (not just from 1 to 10), so even two different sites that both have a PR6 in the toolbar can actually have different PageRanks.
The fact is that Google does special work to help measure reputation in non-English languages.
Zac: Is there a significant difference between Chinese site SEO and English site SEO? Are there differences in your algorithm for different languages?
Matt: I think that every country does have some differences in how they do SEO. In Germany, people are more likely to use hyphens in their domain names, for example. Some countries lean more toward monetizing via affiliate programs; other countries may monetize more via cell phones than credit cards, because credit cards aren’t equally common in every country. But there are many common ways that SEOs operate.
Jianfei: One main difference between Chinese site SEO and English site SEO is the set of queries they are working on. For example, “viagra” is one of the most spammy queries for English, while “手机铃声” (ringtone) is a more spammy query for Chinese. Another difference is that almost all mid- or large-sized Chinese domains have blogs, which is not the case for other languages.
Zac: Adwords users in other countries normally sign up for Adwords account directly with Google. However Google takes different approach in China, partnering with Adwords agents, kind of localized way as all PPC providers in China do the same.
Why did Google choose this localized approach and did not stick to your direct relationship with advertisers which has been proven to be successful worldwide? Do you consider your Adwords program in China a success?
Matt: I’m sorry to say that I’m not an AdWords expert, but I do know that Google tries to adapt to each market and present products in the way that works best for every country. I’m proud of the AdWords team, and I think that they’re doing a really good job in China.
Zac: Some SEOs believe that freshness plays an important role in Google ranking. Many think blogs are easier to rank better due to freshness. Yet some SEOs think it’s not a good idea to tweak web pages frequently.
What do you suggest? Update web pages often, or no?
Matt: It depends on the industry that you are in. I would do whatever makes the most sense for your users. Just changing a page more often for the sake of having a page change is probably not very productive. But if you have a blog, then posting more often might attract more users. So for some people it might make sense to change the page less often (a manufacturing company, for example), while for some people it will make sense to change the page often to attract more visitors (e.g. if you are a blogger).
Zac: Is SEO service a reliable business model that you would recommend to SEOers in China? I ask this because there’s very very few established and reputable SEO companies in China. Many companies claim they provide SEO services but what they actually do is spamming forums and blogs.
Ethical individual SEOs are struggling to survive.
I believe you know plenty of successful SEO companies. In China, do we have a future ahead of us in SEO industry? How can we grow, from individual to reputable SEO company?
Jianfei: I think if SEOs can follow Google’s quality guidelines, then that SEO can have great future. Search engine results are important to the industry, and there can be a lot of market demand for an ethical company.
Matt: If you are considering using an SEO, it’s very important to think about the long-term. It doesn’t help to get a spike in users if Google or other search engines will find spam and remove a site. One thing you can do is ask for references or see if a company can provide success stories where the SEO provided stable long-term traffic. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&hl=cn is a good document to read about how to research SEOs. Unfortunately, there are some SEO services that will spam if you hire them, and you should try to avoid them in the first place.
Zac: There’re lots of talk about trusted domain and authority sites. If a site is considered authority, it will be ranked higher in Google, more people find it and more links, then it becomes even stronger.
How should mom-and-pop sites overcome this situation and compete with authority sites? Besides building a great site with tons of useful original contents, is there a shortcut?
Matt: I wouldn’t try to tackle a huge keyword if you’ve just created your small mom-and-pop business. Instead, concentrate on a smaller niche where you can get to be known as an expert. As you get to be more well-known, then you can work from the smaller niche up to bigger and bigger areas. Many successful sites start out small and then build their way up. Also, the more creative or funny or helpful you can be, often that will help people become aware of you faster.
Jianfei: For example, your site http://www.chinamyhosting.com/seoblog/ , is such a site. One year ago, the site was not as well-known. But through your hard work and creative effort, now it ranks well for the query [搜索引擎优化排名] (search engine optimization) which is an impressive feat.
Zac: Have you ever been to China? If you do plan to visit China, there’re thousands of fans who would like to meet you in person.
Jianfei: I was born in China, in the last year I’ve been to China twice, plus I enjoy working with people at the Google China office.
Matt: I’m sorry to say that I’ve never been to China. My mother has been to China several times, including Yangshuo (Guilin), and my wife has been once, and they both speak a little Chinese even though they’re both American. So clearly I need to work on getting over there; I hear that it’s an amazing country, so I’d love to visit some day.
I won’t be able to make it to SES China this year, but I’m really excited that I think Jianfei or another Google representative will be able to represent Google at SES China. Jianfei is a top-notch member of the webspam team and he’s a much smarter expert on Chinese webspam than I am.
Zac: Everyday I see link spams in my blog. Will link spam in blogs and forums cause penalty or they are simply ignored by Google therefore have no effects on ranking?
Jianfei: Actually, it can be dangerous to do link spam. If Google finds a company is doing link spam, it may remove the company’s site from our index. Google may not re-include the site unless we don’t see the spam links anymore. In most case, removing links is even more difficult than adding links (e.g., the links posted on blogs, BBS by spamware), so it’s better to stay away from link spam.
Matt: Usually Google is good enough that we just try to ignore link spams. When we can tell that a company did link spams, we can take appropriate action.
Zac: Another topic in all SEO forums and blogs is supplemental result. If more and more pages of a domain are dumped into supplemental result, does it mean the domain is losing trust? Would you worry about supplemental result if your SEOer instead of Googler?
Matt: I wouldn’t worry about supplemental results. If your site has lower PageRank then it may occur in our supplemental index, but that doesn’t mean that the site has a penalty or is losing trust. Usually that just means that if you get a few more high-quality links because your site is good, then we will include more pages from your site in our main web index.
In addition, we have been getting better at refreshing our supplemental index more often and showing those results to more users, so webmasters can often start to see more traffic coming to supplemental results pages now.
Zac: Baidu is your biggest competitor in search market of China. It’s said that they have better search technologies than Google in certain fields such as Chinese word segmentation.
On the other hand, Google has been recruiting top talent in China. I read somewhere that the engineering team at Google China has yet contributed much to the core ranking algorithm. Do you plan to localize the algorithm to better suit Chinese language? What’s your technical advantage compared with Baidu?
Jianfei: As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on specific competitors. We welcome competition that helps deliver useful information to users and expands user choice. Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space - it makes us all work harder and at the end of the day our users benefit from that.
Matt: We don’t talk much about our ranking because it’s confidential, but the China office has contributed in several ways to how Google does ranking. In fact, some really nice applications such as http://www.google.cn/rebang/home are seen in China before other places. That’s a brand-new product developed in China.
Zac: If you don’t mind, Matt, are you GoogleGuy at WebmasterWorld as hinted? Google is doing great job communicating with webmasters and we appreciate. Is there any chance that an engineer in Google China team can take similar role to communicate actively with Chinese webmaster community?
Matt: I don’t think we’ve confirmed the official identity of GoogleGuy, and that’s okay because it means that if GoogleGuy ever needs to take a break, someone new can come in to help communicate. The truth is that I get more credit than I deserve. A lot of communication in English happens from a lot of people: Vanessa Fox, Adam Lasnik, and many, many others.
And in Chinese, I’m very lucky to work with a great team of people such as Jianfei, plus other wonderful people in Mountain View (California USA) and Beijing. My guess is that over time, Google will begin to communicate more and more with Chinese webmasters. This joint interview is a good step forward.
Zac: There’re debates in China, what role should SEO play in the bigger picture for web sites? Is SEO an important part of web marketing and ecommerce? Some web marketers think SEO is piece of cake, write title tag, add keywords here and there, things like that.
Do you think nowadays SEO has gone one step further and act as kind of web marketing consultant? In other words, SEOers should help clients streamline online sales process, find target market, content development, user experience, viral marketing, etc. This is the concept I’m trying to spread. In the end, users need a great site, not great code.
Matt: I agree that SEO in many cases is about making a great site, not just getting the web design or the code just right. SEO does include getting the right tags and code in place, but that’s just the first step. If you can come up with a great viral marketing campaign or something that gets people talking about your site with word of mouth, that’s SEO as well, and is a much better way to get links than trying to use spamware programs, for example.
In many ways, SEO is about making sure that users have a great experience, because if you make a great site, that’s going to help a site rank better in search engines naturally.
Zac: Do you foresee big changes in terms of SEO in the coming few years?
Matt: I think personalization and localization are big trends. If we can return different results for the same query because Google knows a little more about you, that may be a really big quality win for users. That will make SEO a little harder, but SEOs who care about long-term value will be quite happy about personalization, because they’ll get visitors who are more interested in their site, and those visitors may convert into buyers.
Jianfei: Of course, Google is also going to continue to pay a lot of attention to quality and SEO. Over time, I think Chinese SEOs will find that it’s easier to make great sites that agree with our quality guidelines, because Google will continue to work hard to stop spam.
Zac: Do you like Chinese food?
Matt: I love Chinese food! I hear that Chinese food in the United States isn’t quite the same though, so maybe some day I’ll get a chance to experience real Chinese food. I’d like to try some Peking duck, for example. Thank you for asking these interesting questions!
Zac: Thank you Matt and Jianfei.
Matt: Thank you! We’d love for people to report Chinese spam athttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-cnhttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=zh-twand to use our webmaster tools as well. There’s also a lot of information for Chinese webmasters at http://www.google.cn/support/webmasters/ . We’ll also continue to listen to Chinese webmasters and try to respond.
We enjoy reading at sites like http://www.seobbs.net/ , http://www.dunsh.org/ and of course we also enjoy http://www.chinamyhosting.com/seoblog/
Search Engine Market to Consolidate
Search engine service providers launched a new round of attacks in the fiercely competing market on Friday - moves which could close the final stage of consolidations.
Baidu.com, the country's biggest search engine service provider, on Thursday held a Most Searched Brand and Entreprenuer award with Rupert Hoogewerf, CEO of EuroMoney China, trying to boost its influence among business leaders and young people.
Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, believed that with the searches of interested brands or entrepreneurs, people will find out their stories and spread the entrepreneurial spirit.
Baidu also released its hard disk search software on February 28, aiming to expand its search services from web search to hard disk search.
Zhongsou.com, another major player in the market, also released its desktop search software NetPig 3.0 version on Thursday.
"Desktop search has become a trend in the market, but who will be the leader in the market?" queried Chen Pei, president of Beijing-based Zhongsou.
He believed the development of search engine technology has entered the third generation, which has search results both on the web and computer hard disks and provides customized search services.
The Chinese Internet portal Sohu.com also upgraded its search engine website Sougou.com on February 25 - and vowed to become the leading search engine service provider in the country.
The US giant Yahoo!'s Chinese operation also said it would aim to become the biggest player in two years.
Henry Yang, president of the Internet industry research company Shanghai iResearch Co Ltd, believed the moves and remarks of companies like Baidu, Zhongsou, Sohu, and Yahoo! China reflect the intensity of the competition in the search engine market, which is almost fully consolidated.
"The market consolidation is almost done and the positions of some leaders are well established, so naturally some smaller players would seek other means to put themselves under the spotlight," said Yang.
According to an iResearch report on the Chinese search engine market, the business grew to 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million) in 2004 with a 74 per cent year-on-year growth rate.
Baidu, Google and search services by Yahoo! China were the top three most popular search engines in 2004 with almost 85 per cent of the usage.
Yang pointed out that the technical barriers to the business are already quite high and the positions of a few major players are quite established, so small and medium players are facing mounting difficulties.
He said new technologies, such as desktop search software by Zhongsou and My Search software by 8848.com will bring some uncertainties to the competition in the market, but it will be very difficult for a new player to emerge just with new technologies.
Baidu.com, the country's biggest search engine service provider, on Thursday held a Most Searched Brand and Entreprenuer award with Rupert Hoogewerf, CEO of EuroMoney China, trying to boost its influence among business leaders and young people.
Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, believed that with the searches of interested brands or entrepreneurs, people will find out their stories and spread the entrepreneurial spirit.
Baidu also released its hard disk search software on February 28, aiming to expand its search services from web search to hard disk search.
Zhongsou.com, another major player in the market, also released its desktop search software NetPig 3.0 version on Thursday.
"Desktop search has become a trend in the market, but who will be the leader in the market?" queried Chen Pei, president of Beijing-based Zhongsou.
He believed the development of search engine technology has entered the third generation, which has search results both on the web and computer hard disks and provides customized search services.
The Chinese Internet portal Sohu.com also upgraded its search engine website Sougou.com on February 25 - and vowed to become the leading search engine service provider in the country.
The US giant Yahoo!'s Chinese operation also said it would aim to become the biggest player in two years.
Henry Yang, president of the Internet industry research company Shanghai iResearch Co Ltd, believed the moves and remarks of companies like Baidu, Zhongsou, Sohu, and Yahoo! China reflect the intensity of the competition in the search engine market, which is almost fully consolidated.
"The market consolidation is almost done and the positions of some leaders are well established, so naturally some smaller players would seek other means to put themselves under the spotlight," said Yang.
According to an iResearch report on the Chinese search engine market, the business grew to 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million) in 2004 with a 74 per cent year-on-year growth rate.
Baidu, Google and search services by Yahoo! China were the top three most popular search engines in 2004 with almost 85 per cent of the usage.
Yang pointed out that the technical barriers to the business are already quite high and the positions of a few major players are quite established, so small and medium players are facing mounting difficulties.
He said new technologies, such as desktop search software by Zhongsou and My Search software by 8848.com will bring some uncertainties to the competition in the market, but it will be very difficult for a new player to emerge just with new technologies.
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