PPC Blog by Gordon Choi

When setting up paid search marketing strategies for China or other Asia-Pacific countries, search market share of each search engine should be one of the factors to consider. According a recent research report by comScore.com, below are the top 10 search engines in the Asia-Pacific region in April 2008:
Google Sites: 39.1%
Yahoo Sites: 24.0%
Baidu.com: 16.7%
NHN Corporation [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, PPC, Research, Search Engines | No Comments

Run a search on Baidu.com for one of the popular Chinese keywords - “lady clothes” (Nv-Zhuang being the pinyin) and you will find a PPC sponsored ad at position 10 (at the very bottom). With this keyword, the top 4 and the 10th results are PPC ads.

The natural search results begin at position 5 and [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, PPC | 2 Comments

Koubei.com is to merge with Yahoo China (cn.yahoo.com), one of the web properties owned by China’s largest Internet company Alibaba group. The popular Hangzhou based site Koubei.com is a life community which mainly focuses on classifieds related to real estate property renting, local restaurants, and entertainment venues.
The merge with Koubei.com is believed to enhance Yahoo’s [...]

Posted in: China, Web 2.0, Yahoo | 1 Comment

Google is to purchase 265.com, a startup page of Chinese website links (or piloting or daohang). 265.com has been a partner site with since last year and Google’s search box has been positioned at a prominent spot on 265.com.

Previously, Google did launch its own daohang (or startup page of website links), but it is [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, Google, Web Directories | 1 Comment

The major Chinese websites turned the main theme (colour) of their home pages into black and white today for the memories of victims who died in the earthquake on 12 May 2008. Sites participated in the mourning include search engines like Baidu, Google China, and Yahoo China, portals such as Sina and Sohu, and China’s [...]

Posted in: China | No Comments

Google seems to be trying continuously to improve both user experience and stickiness on its web search and PPC ads. If you use Google regularly, you could already have spotted most of the minor and major changes below. The first example is on the search box, in which it normally looks like:

Below is the extended [...]

Posted in: China, Google, Usability | No Comments

Two of the Chinese search engines (Baidu.com and Alibaba.com) reached top 10 in terms of worldwide search market share in December 2007, according to a recent report by ComScore.
1. Google Sites - 62.4%
2. Yahoo! Sites - 12.8%
3. Baidu.com Inc - 5.2%
4. Microsoft Sites - 2.9%
5. NHN Corporation - 2.4%
6. eBay - 2.2%
7. Time Warner Network [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, Ecommerce, Research, Search Engines | 1 Comment

In 2007, paid search marketing can still be considered a new marketing channel for most of the large companies based in China, whether they are of International brands or local brands. Not many companies are yet to have any PPC marketing strategies. However, it is important to incorporate paid search into the overall marketing strategies. [...]

Posted in: China, PPC, Search Engines | 1 Comment

The Chinese text ads on the right hand side of Baidu search engine are officially called Baidu Huobao, which are available for purchase via Baidu’s dedicated ad agencies.
Baidu Hubao is not exactly like PPC ads. You pay a fixed yearly fee, rather than cost-per-click, which is what Baidu JingJia currently is.

There are 10 ad positions [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, PPC | 5 Comments

Baidu has been the leader of search market share in China on multiple search verticals. In recent years, its newly launched projects (or verticals) are also gradually becoming more and more popular and are growing Baidu’s user base. Internet in China may still be on the stage of mostly providing entertainment. Baidu is definitely at [...]

Posted in: Baidu, China, Search Engines, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment