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.
Comments
Google has set a very good example for baidu，in my opinion,what baidu do to her advertisers would not do anything good for her business in the long term…
yes…that is true…..and will force Baidu to have to be more fair to its advertisers..
as they say in USA “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and that seems to be what Baidu is doing….
see what happens…
can i translate this article? some people may speak highly of you for being frank and they may share the same feeling. while, on the other hand, some may think you are whineing… if you want it to be published, let me know.
by the way, in my opinion, it’s a good one and i like it.
hey Nigel,
Yes, please translate this article….even when I was writing it I was thinking I am whining a bit…but I think people relate to this feeling….
And I don’t want to hide my feelings, I am a human being like everyone else, I don’t want to cover up the maybe “daily” thoughts I have.
Glad you like it, and thanks so much for getting these on the Chinese blog
Mike
don’t mention it, you taught me a lot, like, to respect others even though he is your employee. and later, dswei gave me a special gift for doing this….
as for baidu, i don’t know much about it. but i know that once it was found by cctv that it was charging money for higher rank and it really annoys many people as it’s like a directory of advertisements instead of a search engine…but any way, users will decide whether it is right or wrong and you needn’t get angry about it though it is sure you will suffer some loss one way or another…
hi Nigel,
thanks for stepping up and taking initiative with my Chinese blog. Life many times doesn’t give us the answers, we need to make our own path and suggest to others what we can do.
Yea, Baidu, hopefully will have to be open and un-biased as it gets bigger, and as China continues to open to the outside world.
Lets watch and see, I don’t think you or I can change them! haha
of course,if it were only us, baidu won’t change, but you see, many chinese don’t like baidu, too, especially when google got easier and more native….so some will turn to google even it’ not a chinese company… what’s more, google provides some imformation that baidu or the government won’t want to see, which just make some people want to use google more….
and i think it’s getting more interesting as i GOOGLE-ed something about baidu charging money, and it seems if i post your article some where else, some people may be led here…..will you agree if i do that? you had better think twice before deciding…
haha, ok Nigel,
you have convinced me….lets just keep this blog post in English .. . no need to make it Chinese mailini one….
Hopefuly one day we dont need to think twice about what we post in china.
I heard last week many domains were blocked in China for taking part in groups that the government didnt approve – that is just sad.
seems like little children fighting to me.
good job Nigel!
Mike
i was so lucky to see this in time…it has been translated and i was actually posting it…but thank god i went to see your reply just in time…
but i don’t know what do you refer to. i google it, but found only some BT websites got bloked for copyright problems…
thank you and good luck, Mike!
hey Nigel,
F__K it, just post it, if you already translated it..
haha
go go go
hope you are not annoyed…i dindn’t expect this dialogue would be so long either…just don’t want to get you involved in trouble, that’s all…hope i am not too gossipy…
thanks my friend no worries…
maybe we should still post it somewhere……on a domain we are not afraid about.