China Information search system

[shakeda]

On Chinese search market whether we take Chinese mainland or so called BIG CHINA we can find some free searchengines like Sohu, Baidu, Yisuo and the like. Anyone can use it. But there are at least two problems: too many information to be analyzed, no time to explore it.

For example, couple months ago I was looking for Flash-memory producers in China. I spent about four-five hours to get necessary information. But I would have been quite happy I there had been any profit making searchengines targeting at Chinese market. Just because I prefer to pay money then spend my time.

So I would like to know has someone experience of working with such searchengines?

[guoqi]

I never heard that we need to pay money to use search engine? Which search engine you can pay and get a better search result?

The main search engine is China is Baidu and Google. Sohu use Baidu technology. Yisuo is very very new, from Yahoo.

The only problem with Chinese search engine is the Language, do you understand the language?

[bill]

I think shakeda is thinking in terms of paying for specialty search engines that would give specific industry results for a fee. There are some directory sites charging for industry specific listings, but I haven't seen any search engines do this in the Chinese market. Northern Light did something like this for a while in the English market, but disappeared a while back.

[shakeda]

to Bill

Yes, you understood me correctly.
Using ordinary searchengines we get just a flow of information, its quality sometimes seems to be no good even useless. So I was thinking about business oriented search company, which can provide its clients with a sort of research on specific topic about china.

[martinibuster]

This problem isn't unique to China. It's a problem that affects all search engines. Because internet search is broad, the searcher's intent can be from a million different viewpoints. Thus the search engines are at disadvantage when someone types Chinese Widgets into the search box Do they mean, Chinese Herbal Widgets, Chinese Widgets the movie, Widgets used in China, or Widgets manufactured in China?

The solution of course is to become a niche engine. The problem is that a niche audience may not be large enough to support the niche engine. The counter solution is to broaden the scope of the niche product, but that would tend to broaden the scope of searcher intent which is the original problem.

One possible solution is to introduce a network of niche search engines that are searchable from a drop down menu. The searcher enters their query, then using the drop down menu select, "Medical Search" for a medical query, etc.

[guoqi]

I think, to find the right information in a quicker time, maybe not only Search engine can help. There are some companies, government departments who are specilized in offering this kind of information.

I do not know other countries, I am living in Holland. I know Dutch government has 8 offices in Mainland China who are specializing in cellecting this kind of marketing data and their service is totally free to Dutch people. I know Chinese government have some people whose jobs are to help foreigners find the right information about China.

Maybe, those kind of organization can help? Are you from America? Can a call to American embassy in China be helpful?