Baidu isn't top in China because Google left

[bill]

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/02/15/baidus-robin-li-on-search-giants-success-it-isnt-because-google-left-china/ [blogs.wsj.com]

Baidu’s Robin Li on Search Giant’s Success: It Isn’t Because Google Left China

Would Google be leading the Chinese search engine market if it had never pulled out? The founder of the current market leader, Chinese search engine giant Baidu, doubts it.

The success of Baidu isn’t necessarily linked to Google’s withdrawal from the Chinese market, Baidu’s founder Robin Li said in an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television that aired last Friday.

“This is a sort of misunderstanding. I’ve heard this a lot and I have to say I care because it isn’t the truth,” Mr. Li said in the interview.

[tangor]

Lack of competition (encouraged at the State level) might have something to do with it.

Meanwhile, I stopped reading WSJ when I noted it was (and had become over a number of years) an anagram for SJW.

[bill]

Yeah, it's hard to say what might have happened if Google had stayed in the market. That's fairly obvious. However, I was in China when Google was still there and Baidu had a commanding lead simply due to their SERPs, which were vastly superior. You have to understand that Google doesn't perform the same in non-English languages. They've only recently caught up in Japanese. In Chinese they really weren't showing the best results. Baidu was a lot more relevant and I saw everyone using them over Google. They did have the better product, so I can understand why Mr. Li might make comments like this.

[tangor]

In all truth, that is probably the best description of why g failed and Baidu excelled. There is a big difference in, if nothing else, the number of letters in the alphabet! :)

[bill]

Yes, but who's to say they wouldn't have vastly improved by being active in China? It's easy to think of Google as a powerhouse in the West, but in the East they aren't on the same footing.