This is a great example of how you need to have guan xi (good relations) in China. Even in the digital age, its important to have strong relations with government agencies and high power internet companies here in China…let me show here below. (breath in….)
Man….how annoying…..after some talking in beijing to internet companies, i have been wondering why my rank for my chinese website 98products.com has dropped in baidu.com search engine (the biggest search engine in china, about 75% of chinese people use it)
Baidu has been calling my office lately asking why we haven’t added money to their paid advertising program (similar to google adwords), and say if we do not pay they will remove our account.
What is this??? If i dont pay money for your advertisements, then you will delete my website from the account??? So then chinese people looking for the products or services i provide, then I will have to re-create a Baidu account.
So i asked some big professionals here in beijing, they say, yup, this would be unheard of in the united states…but is a reality for baidu and china here…
They recommend to simply start over with a new domain account when I am ready to advertise…
Or pay baidu the money they ask for….
Unbelievable…
And there isnt anyone i can talk to…
And you know what is stupid, on the new domain website, i can never signup for a paid account, or if i do, i have to continue to pay baidu indefinitely, else they will remove me again…
so, if you start paying, you had better keep doing it……because once you start……
Comparing this to google, there is absolutely no connection with their paid (or sponsored) advertising program and their normal (organic) search results….
It just sucks that baidu had to play games like this….and its sad…
Sad because i am so often asked whats the differences between google and baidu….do i mention this in my answer…..????
Its just not fair to hard working chinese internet professionals….
i mean chinese government, so scared, they have to control information and manipulate search results…..why cant you play fair…it is embarrassing to the up and coming next generation of chinese professionals….
Times are changing….and hopefully baidu changes for the better too……
As i think its great to have a competitor to google, its market share is too big - but in thid case i have to route for google to continue to grow in the chinese market…..
And the other sad thing is, i can notice google.com search queries slow to respond or get a page not found error…and while i cannot confirm it, makes you think government is interrupting the service ….to swing people away from using it….
Facebook and twitter and others are blocked in china….imagine google.com
Then…there would be google.cn (g.cn)…..but…those results are monitored and filtered in china as well….but at least better than baidu
There….goes my complaining and whining….hope this blog doesnt get banned in china now for this….or punished by baidu and banned.
Again, I think in China, its normal to say you need to have special relations with governments and large cooperations to succeed. But with today’s internet age, it challenges the exact idea….allowing small companies and startups to grow quickly….Seems china traditions aren’t letting up. (via @michelini)
December 8th, 2009 at 12:10 am
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December 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
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December 21st, 2009 at 8:02 am
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