One of the peculiarities with Google search in China is the question of domains. Which Google domain censors search results, which does not and does it depend on the location the searcher originates. I have made a quick comparison. Additionally as always an overview of what has been happening in the world of search and related in China in the past week(s).
Google China related domains and search
Since Google launched Guge, the Chinese version of Google, I have been trying to keep track which Chinese Google domains deliver filtered (censored) results and which don’t. I wrote about this phenomenon before.
Domain name wise it’s a confusing situation, result wise it seems to depend on the location of the searcher and the number of times one refreshes the page.
In the overview you can see the most likely situation. I say, most likely, as for the domain Google.com.cn for example I’m sometimes re-directed to Google.cn and sometimes to Google.com. Google.cn will deliver filtered search results while Google.com will be uncensored.
Searches on Google.com/intl/zh-CN/ (Chinese language search on the Google.com domain) from within China seem to be coming from the filtered Google.cn database (probably based on IP, searches performed from elsewhere in the world on google.com/intl/zh-CN/ are unfiltered.
It can well be that my searches, using proxies to see the situation from the “rest of the world” perspective, may not represent the real situation. It may even be that there is a difference in behaviour depending on whether I’m logged in to my Google account or not.
I’d love to hear from searchers outside of China if they are as well re-directed and whether results are filtered or not when searching on a Chinese Google domain. This way the overview can be corrected if needed.
Some other noteworthy articles if you have the time:
- My Space China has opened up shop. They have officially become the next in line to try to get a piece of the Social Media space in China. They’re not alone and many similar websites have already been active for some time. I sometimes wonder how many communities one can have.
- In China’s week of Intellectual Property Protection Yahoo lost a lawsuit about linking to mp3 music files and has been ordered to pay 200,000 Yuan (about 27,200 U.S. dollars) in damages to the suing record companies. Yahoo will appeal this decision saying that in a similar law suit some time ago Baidu wasn’t convicted (This case was appealed and there has yet to become on a ruling here) and that it only provides links in its music search results and can’t be held responsible for the content of third-party websites.
- More Live search opportunities for Lenovo computer owners as Microsoft made a distribution deal with Lenovo.
- Adsense will start to cooperate with Chinese domestic banks for the Google Adsense income earned by Chinese webmasters this year.
- Google has cornered some more real estate in China for their ads. They will be serving Ads on over 400 China Telecom Sites.
- Baidu has launched Search For The Blind. The url is dao.baidu.com. The difference with Baidu’s normal search service is that the homepages for the different channels have been simplified to make it easier for software that reads web pages out loud to read the pages.
–
Gemme van Hasselt is an Internet Marketing Consultant, living in Shanghai, and owner of the China Directory.
