Google's Battle with Censorship in China

Google is struggling to find its place in China amongst heavy censorship, evaluating its future with the Chinese people. "We like what China is doing in terms of growth...we just don't like censorship. We hope that will change and we can apply some pressure to make things better for the Chinese people," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Just two weeks ago Google dealt an ultimatum to China, unless Google was allowed to offer an uncensored search engine in China, it would no longer provide a censored search engine and would consider pulling out of China entirely.

China which has historically been known for its closed doors, keeping western ideals out of China seems to be the goal. Censorship is extremely thick, the Chinese people are forced to use censored search engines or use proxy servers to access the Internet in other countries which is illegal. Google obviously has a lot invested in the Chinese economy so to pull out completely would never happen; Schmidt hopes that he will be able to meet China in the middle. At the end of the day China will have the final say in this matter.

"We like the Chinese people. We like our Chinese employees ... we remain committed to being there", Schmidt stated last week on Google's fourth-quarter earnings' call. Something interesting to consider is that on the same day that Schmidt made those statements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commended Google for fighting censorship; Internet companies have a "shared responsibility" with the U.S. government in assuring free access to the Internet wherever you are in the world. Unfortunately, that is not an easy task and governments will want to decide for themselves what the people are exposed to.

Will Google succeed in changing Chinese censorship laws? Probably Not! Even if Google shuts down Google.cn, Schmidt is exploring its options in China. Google could still operate a software-development or research presence in China. I guess Google's battle with censorship in China will continue into the future!

Will LeapFish compete with Google and other Search Engines?

LeapFish.com is a search engine portal that allows you to search through Google, Yahoo, and MSN (Now known as Bing). Some say that LeapFish might even be competing with Google but I don't believe it can since its main search results are based off of Google's engine.

LeapFish does have some nice features though; it displays the Market Summary, top News, and Latest Videos from Youtube. The interesting thing about the videos is you don't have to hit play, simply place your mouse over the thumbnail and it will begin playing.

The search is nice because you have the ability to compare results from the top three engines and see where your site ranks based on the keywords you enter.

As for advertising on LeapFish you pay for the keywords as would with any other PPC Campaign except you keep the spot until you are willing to sell it. For Example, if you purchase "California Drug Rehab" you hold that spot for every time someone searches that until you want to sell it. It's interesting but not sure if it will last.

LeapFish has also been known for taking their client's money and it's possible those rumors began because of their advertisement slots.

Have you used it? What are your thoughts on this website?

Is Bing a decision engine, a surname, a candy bar, a slag heap?

Is Bing a decision engine, a surname, a candy bar, a slag heap? Over the past couple of months I have been reading a lot about Microsoft's new search engine BING.com. We are all familiar with Microsoft, right? We know about Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search. And now we have Microsoft's latest reincarnation, BING, and more importantly BING is being referred to as a decision engine as opposed to a search engine. I suppose MS is for all intents and purposes now a matchmaker! Not only is MS finding you mates to choose from they are determined to help you make the decision.

A few of observations about BING:

• On the serious side: I want our clients to know that the Webconsuls' Team will be following and studying the impact of BING from an SEO standpoint. That is what we are tasked to do. There are a number of questions to be asked and answered, but we must do this responsibly. And on that front, Webconsuls will keep our clients informed.

• BING is quite lovely to look at. Everyday the home page photo changes and these photos are dramatic. Google's basic home page is pretty blank, but works. Yahoo, which by the way is still my default home page has a lot of information and I have grown accustom to reading the news' headlines, clicking on finance, travel, etc, I have never had a Yahoo account or email account.

• There are a number of sites that you can visit that will allow you to compare search results for BING to GOOGLE, like this one. And there is another site that lets you compare search results from GOOGLE, BING, and YAHOO. This site's search results are returned in a "blind" state and the fun feature about this site is that you can vote for which search results best suits your search query. You might be surprised which search engine's results you really like.

My final thought today has to do with the choice of the name "BING". I will say that writing this blog always gives me an opportunity to learn new things and today is no exception. Why "BING"? I understand that originally Microsoft was going to call their new search (decision) engine KUMO. They actually registered both trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. KUMO is a Japanese word that means spider or cloud. Hmmmm, well I guess we can all get the "spider" connection to the world wide web and in the IT world "cloud" is a metaphor for the internet, so I guess it could have cleverly worked. So I come back to question: why "BING"? I am going to assume, although I know that can be a mistake, that someone at Microsoft looked up the meaning(s) of the word "BING".

BING Toy Company founded in 1863, famous for the manufacturing of toy trains
Bing is apparently a fairly common surname, and let's not forget Chandler Bing of Friends
BING Candy Bar, made in Iowa
BING cherries, all with pits
Bing is another name for a slag heap which is a collection of the tailings or by-products of mining (DATA Mining comes to mind?)
Bing is the name of a soft drink produced in England
Bing is the name of Chinese flat bread
Bing is also a phrase used by prison inmates to describe solitary confinement

Ok, maybe they didn't do a lot of name research, maybe they just liked the sound of "BING". Maybe they like saying "Bing and Decide". Whatever....I invite you to go to their Discover Bing informational site and learn all about it.

Webconsuls will continue to study BING and keep you informed. Let me know what you think.