The ONLY Search Market Where Google Is No.2

There is one search market where Google had to be content being No.2 - and that's in China.

According to the China Internet Marketing Network Information Center, Google handled less than 25 per cent of all Chinese web searches - and its share was shrinking rapidly. Baidu, a chinese search engine is the runaway leader with a 62 per cent of the market.

Surprisingly, a research by Enquiro, a search engine marketing firm, reports that Baidu’s dominance isn’t down to technology. It's down to brand. In a blind taste test carried out by the firm this month, the Chinese version of Google significantly outperformed Baidu.

"With Google, the average search took around 30 seconds," says Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro president and CEO. "With Baidu, it was up around a minute." But, the Chinese users still prefer Baidu. Baidu has actually become a brand for search engine in China.

If you look at the other markets where Google leads in search, this same story plays out just the opposite. In almost every other market, Google has become a brand for search (as in "I'll google it") and whether or not it's search results are best(I personally love them!), Google gets more users than every other search engine.

So, what is happening to Google in China is very interesting. We'll wait for how Google tackles this important market with an exploding internet population.