Google China News Search Focus on Images

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Google Inc. sought to close in on its China market rival Baidu.com by allowing users of its Chinese site to find news by first searching for images carried within articles.

Google's move was mainly aimed at catching up with Baidu -- which already offers a similar search function -- as many Chinese Web surfers tend to be drawn more to images rather than immediately seeking out text articles, said Edward Yu, president at Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

Google China News Search Focus on Images [uk.reuters.com]

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Looking at tedster's post about Chinese Eye-tracking Heat Maps [webmasterworld.com] and then reading this article it makes a bit more sense. It's tougher to scan Chinese text for readers. An image would speed up the process immensely.