Website Localization - Which Directories Are You Relying On?

Internet user demographics are ever changing. More users are coming on the internet from more countries. Everyone needs to keep their website visible to as many internet users as possible if you are interested in new clients. It may be time to change some of your practices. When registering your company with online directories, it seems like most of the world relies solely on being referenced by Google.

Let’s take a closer look below at how well Google searches fare in two of the world’s largest markets. Remember if Google is not penetrating well into a foreign market, then your website will not be found in that market.

In China, Google has a 27% market share; but the local language search engine Baidu has a full 55%. Similarly, in Russia, Google is in a distant third place, with Yandex the leader and another Russian player - Rambler - holding second. Google holds only a 17% market share in Russia - behind two Russian Language sites that control nearly 75% of that market. In addition to the 140 million Russians, there are an additional 145 million people that speak Russian worldwide.More than 50% of growth in internet users from 2007-2010 is likely to come from China, Russia and India which are behind western Europe and North America - please note that these countries have more than 40% of the worlds population. It is probably time to find out how to get your site listed on these search engines.

Chinese and Russian Population & Internet Numbers

215 million Americans have internet access at present. There are 162 million from China and 60 million from India. The total Chinese and Indian users added together equals the number of users in the US. But this does not take the total populations of these countries into account. There are more than 2 billion other Chinese and Indians that are not yet on the internet.

China is the world’s most populated country, nearly 1.4 Billion people. Russia has the largest population in Europe, larger than Germany and France combined. Russia and China each have one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

Internet penetration in Russia currently stands at about 20% - half the European average and less than a third of the 69.9% in the United States.

In China, penetration is just 12.5% (so there are a BILLION future clients that are not on the internet yet). When China reaches the worldwide average for internet penetration of 20% they will have passed the number of American internet users.

The penetration levels in Western Europe and North America appear to have stabilized and look unlikely to grow significantly in the future. As an example, Internet penetration is 55% and 65% of the French and German populations.

The majority of new world-wide internet users is expected to come from China and India. Their present internet user penetration is only 12.5% and 5% respectively. The bulk of new European users is expected to be from Russia, the Ukraine and Turkey.

It is estimated that in less then 2 years China will pass the United States as the biggest internet community online.

Is Google up to the Challenge

It is time for an interesting question. Have Google and Microsoft reached their search engine plateau? Are they about to begin the decline in worldwide search engine dominance? Most of the estimations place Google at more than 70% of the present market share world-wide.

What will be their global market share in five years time? Even if Google’s market share grows in Russia and China their overall world share may fall because of the increase in foreign script searches and the increased value of local language search engines.

Yahoo! is not mentioned here as word on the street says Microsoft wants to acquire them. Yahoo! has been on a decline for the last several years.

Get Better Ranks In Russia

And Here are a few pointers if you want to go beyond Google to get better search engine rankings for your website in Russia and China.

The current Russian search engine leader is Yandex. Yandex does not accept site submissions from sites hosted outside of Russia. This does not mean, however, that domain names have to be from the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan). They do have to be hosted with an IP address from a Russian speaking country OR with pages in Russian. By chance, Yandex offers free hosting services, so starting a Russian language site is not as hard as it may see.

Sites are indexed quicker if it is significantly linked to by sites hosted in Russia and Russian language sites, similar to the Google algorithm that gives greater value to a link to your site if the linker is in your field. You will need to read Russian to find out how to upload a site on Yandex

In China the leader is Baidu. Unlike Google, Baidu has merged all of their search results together - organic and paid. Even if this site is in Chinese you can still easily figure it out how to submit your site if you would like to give it a try; just mouse over links until you find one that has a link to submit.

Probably the best way to be a top 10 player in the Baidu SERP’s is to pay. Capitalism is alive and well in China, and with a billion future clients it may be worth your while. They do advertise Pay for Performance (P4P) and they tailor advertising solutions.

To be honest, the best way to be on the Google or Yahoo Front page is also by advertising. To improve user experience, Baidu has introduced “phonetic” or “pin-yin” search which allows users to type in Chinese keywords using English alphabets.

To rank well organically, you must first realize that the Chinese search audience is very Chinese oriented. Your landing page must be fully in Chinese and presented in the Chinese style. Similar issues arise in other countries; a Japanese website written and designed by a Texan will not be accepted in Japan.

So, plan on hiring a Chinese team to include a native marketing professional or copywriter - not a translator - and a graphic artist. These folks should be born and raised in mainland China, not American of Chinese origins. The Baidu site states that the Simplified Chinese language is their language of choice so do not be concerned (yet) about the multiple languages available for your Chinese website.

Like all search engines, Baidu does not guarantee your site will be crawled. Like all search engines, once listed on Baidu, you can improve your position by providing high quality content that you regularly keep up to date. Your Chinese site must have inbound links from other Chinese websites.

On a side note, the literal translation of the word Baidu is “hundreds of times” and represents persistent search for the ideal. Yandex is explained as “Yet Another iNDEXer”.

Get Your Website Submitted To The Leading Search Engines In Every Country

Should you be concerned about where your website is listed?

Online companies need to follow their internet user markets. They need to ensure their website is submitted and listed in all of the leading search engine directories in each of the appropriate countries.

By keeping track of your international visitors you will be able to prioritize countries. But internet user demographics is expected to change rapidly and you should look at prioritizing countries based these results.

Start a search engine submission strategy to get your website listed in all of the leading directories in each country.