Google is undoubtedly the dominant search engine globally, but in a few countries such as Korea (Naver), Russia (Yandex) or Japan, local competitors are winning. Especially Japan, the country with the world’s third biggest Internet population (about 100 million people are online), still seems to be a tough nut to crack for Google.
Nielsen Japan reports that in October 2008, Yahoo Search saw a total of over 3.5 billion page views, while No. 2 Google trailed with 2.6 billion page views. According to a Comscore Japan ranking released in September 2008, Yahoo ruled the Japanese search engine market with a share of 51.2% (Google reached 39.0% in that month).
It’s not that Google isn’t trying. In recent months, the company rolled out a number of online ads, offline promotion campaigns and several Japan-only services (Picasa recently started offering QR codes for easy mobile access, for example). And today it came to light they are now paying bloggers to write nice things about Google – a marketing tool TechCrunch never really was a big fan of.
Here is the background:
On Thursday last week, Google Japan revamped the top page and included a new, Japan-only “Hot Keywords” section displaying the top 5 search terms currently googled in Japan (see screenshot below).
Users have been able to add a gadget containing the top 10 hot keywords to iGoogle for months and now can also integrate the list into their blogs as widgets. In its current form, Google Japan looks more like a portal site than any other version worldwide, a product strategy obviously aimed at disputing Yahoo’s standing.
But that didn’t seem to be enough, as the Japanese blogosphere today is filled with reports about Google hiring Cyberbuzz, a Tokyo-based Internet marketing company to promote the keyword feature (its widget version) with a pay-per-post campaign. And in fact, the search string “Google Hot Keywords Ranking+Blog Widget+CyberBuzz” in Japanese in Google’s own Blog Search leads to a few dozen results, indicating the reports aren’t made up of thin air. This blogger, for example, integrated the keyword widget and praises the list as being very useful to be kept up-to-date on what is going on in the world. This one says the keywords change every 20 minutes and that the new Google feature once quickly helped in obtaining information on a Japanese TV star. All postings end with a disclosure that says: “I am taking part in the Cyberbuzz campaign”.
It’s interesting to see that Google, a company that not too long ago radically took action against PayPerPost bloggers in the US, today thinks the concept is suitable as long as it helps them advance in Japan (even though in Japan, pay-per-post isn’t regarded nearly as obnoxious as in the US).
Google Japan’s new president Koichiro Tsujino last month suggested the company will, as Yahoo brilliantly did in the past, try to establish itself as a homegrown brand by putting a stronger emphasis on localized marketing and product strategies. But whatever Google has up its sleeves, pay-per-post campaigns surely are not enough to take over Japan from Yahoo.
Via Asiajin
do no evil.
But but but we’re Google! We’re HELPING Japan by letting them know about our service via a PayPerPost blog campaign! It’s not evil to HELP people now, is it?
GOOGLE!
I think that was a good idea on Google’s behalf to pay bloggers in Japan
This is very sad. However, I became cynical of the do no evil motto a long time ago.
Anjali Sen
this is bs simple as that.
Its legal in Afghanistan to stone, beheadings and cutting of hands are normal in Saudi Arabia.. etc.
Google should be above that.
For some reason the inconsistent use of “Japan” and “Nippon” was really jarring here.
Pick one and stick with it, is all I’m saying.
I think you can read my mind. I was editing the article when you submitted the comment.
Yeah, I went (ironically) to Google and typed in Nippon to learn about this new nation I’d never heard of with the 3rd largest internet population.
No worries then, and I hope I didn’t come off like a total dick with that comment.
I imagine most people here know that Japan and Nippon are two names for the same place, but it stuck out as really weird to me to see both names used in the same article.
Maybe it’s just keyword density pushing
Joke … hehehe
Nothing like paid propaganda to help boost page hits! Hmmmmm, I wonder if that would work for my site?
yeah, i also didnt know that japan is also called nippon….
nippon rules hehe.
It’s nice to see that there may be some competition for Google. Don’t get me wrong, I use them as much as the next person, and they’ve earned their place by the user-friendliness of their product. However, when any company sits on the top of the mountain for too long, we all suffer because they ultimately stop trying as hard to impress.
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Very well said. Competition spurs innovation AND…. price wars. Can’t ever forget that second one.
I’m not sure if I should laugh or be angry over Google buying keyword-laden posts (and likely “dofollow” links in those posts) when they have taken such a strong stance against it before. What hypocrites.
I *wish* this surprised me.
For some reason it does not surprise me either
Matt Cutts, a minus 20 penalty for Google, ay?
This was more of a viral thing anyway, so I doubt Google really cares that the links are do-follow. They’ll probably go back and contact the bloggers, and ask them to put nofollow tags around the links, just so Matt Cutts can B.S. something when he’s questioned about it like, “Well, we meant to have the bloggers put nofollow tags around the links, but that was lost in translation. So we’ve gone and attempted to get them all to ad nofollow tags now.”
I’ve created Google’s solution for them.
Nah… Who cares about follow/nofollowing tags on only the 2nd biggest search engine in the country? Waste of time
No ones looking, they’re busy on Yahoo! 
i guess a man has got to do what a man has got to do, and google is no longer a good little boy!
Hasn’t been for quite a while . . .
Isn’t Google doing a Belkin? {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/UqM93KpZM9_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Isn’t Google doing a Belkin? ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/QSrhBCKitT”}}}
Maybe Yahoo! ought to start paying people to write some good things about them. The press has been hammering them over the past 18 months!
This story is a non-starter. Pay Per Post is unacceptable in Western cultural norms, but is very normal in Japan.
If anything, it further proves the point that Google really is trying to tailor its approach by region.
So you are implying that Google would be OK with me gaming their system via paid links as long as I only used Japanese bloggers to do it?
*shrug*
I’m not IMPLYING anything. I was speaking very plainly. You’re splitting hairs.
What Google Japan did is normal in the Japanese blogosphere/social web. The headline to this post might as well be “Google Japan markets like a Japanese Company” – that sounds like a pretty exiciting story to read, doesn’t it?
Absurd spin, you might as well say it’s ok for Google to recruit child militia in the Congo or pay kickbacks to corrupt officials in China so long as it advances its interests.
Do you work in marketing?
Yes, I do.
I’m amused that you compare Google’s Pay Per Post marketing activities to government corruption and youth militias… seems a little hyperbolic, to say the least.
Do you work in journalism?
And does “regional” approach mean it can violate it’s own quality guidelines? Are you allowed to buy links that pass PageRank if you live in Japan?
If you had any exposure to the Japanese market then you’d appreciate this is the the norm there. Paid links/posts are an accepted part of the marketing mix, and to my (limited) knowledge not something that Google/Yahoo are overly concerned about in that locale.
ygyyhyyhy
Hey hey hey !
Google penalizes us if we sell reviews ( payperpost ), but uses payperpost to promote Google Japan o_O !
WTF ?
Japan is “Nihon” or “Nippon” in Japanese.
I am taking part in the Cyberbuzz campaign
This post brings back the days when I used to collect stamps and had ton of Nippon ones, I used to treasure those…thank you!
As for Google’s strategy, I think do no evil is more about their not messing with the search results by hand, but they will do anything to get ahead.
Google is quite popular among Japanese nerds (ggrks!), it’s the tech illiterate who use Yahoo.
It seems that Google Japan aplogy about payperpost activities.
http://googleja.../02/google.html
http://asiajin....y-per-post-use/
“Google Japan Apologizes For Inappropriate Pay Per Post Use”
Google Japan apologizes for making use of blogging for promotion, not for inappropriate Pay-Per-Post use. I thought blogging for promotion were different from Pay-Per-Post use…
Google have no major problems with paying for exposure on blogs. Their only problem is people paying for PageRank passing links.
I would think the fault of Google Japan is not insisting that all links should be nofollow, though maybe someone in Google also might feel that they are Google, thus they don’t have to pay for this kind of “grass roots” advertising.
Then again, Google doesn’t seem to might advertising on competitors bands with Adwords, and plasters Google Chrome ads all over YouTube.
With their leverage potential, it is strange they pay for any kind of advertising at all.
I love Google
I testing indexed new page in yahoo / google..
result of next week:
yahoo indexed 1.5k, google 3 subpages..
Best Searh in XXI century..
Thus instead of using their own Adsense, Google uses Paid Bloggers.
Wondering if Adsense makes any sense at all.
so would google payperpost hereafter ?
bwhahah, monkey says as monkey does. People need to remember, that Google is a public company, that ‘do no evil’ mantra ended ages ago. Just ‘google’ ‘google pay per post’ and see how many people they publicly slapped bwhahaha.
Serkan, what bothers me – is that instead of quoting your source at the beginning of the article you only wrote a “Via Asiajin” at the end, where few will notice. Although your article has some additional information (the first two paragraphs) it is basically a reiteration of Akky Akimoto’s blog entry and you didn’t even have the courtesy to name the author in this post. It’s easy to get ideas from others and to make them pass as our own, isn’t it? I think it is a pity that Techcrunch tolerates such practices from its authors.
Will they stripped its own PR?
My site was when i used PPP once.
um… bad boi :p
O lol Google nedd higher PR? Maybe want PR11?
I`m more than happy for them to pay me …
I want to file a class action lawsuit against Google for knocking my PPP blog and websites that used PPP, because Google knocked them to either a Page Rank 0 or removed them from the search index but after admitting to using the service itself Google Japans page rank is not a 0 and it is still in the SERPs. There are a lot of laws broken here one is unfair business practices.
Moderne North American mindset: “The end justifies the means.”
I use Scroogle instead of Google™. Scroogle doesn’t keep track of for what you searched (U.S. law enforcement agencies and their allies want the Internet Protocol Addresses of everybody who searches for a grocery list of words and terms.), and it chomps every cookie which Google tries to place on your computer.
http://www.scroogle.org/
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Well, well, well
First, this is no big deal for Japan. It’s perfectly normal to pay or sponsor for blog posts. It’s part of the advertisement portfolio.
Yahoo Japan remained No 1, unlike Yahoo else in the world. The reason is the man behind Yahoo Japan and his company.
Yahoo Japan is part of Softbank Inc. Softbank is offering Yahoo Broadband internet access, TV, its own VOIP standard phone service.
Softbank is the 3rd largest mobile phone carrier in Japan, a baseball club owner and many other things.
For the tech part. Yahoo Japan can and is reaching more Japanese people in there daily live than Google can.
Just for the start, all Softbank mobile phones come with Yahoo ready. The mobile phone bill can only be viewed using Yahoo service. All iPhone come with a ready to use Yahoo app.
And Yahoo Japan has the biggest auction platform in Japan. eBay? eBay sold its operation in Japan to Yahoo Japan years ago.
So it is a perfect marketing concept making sure Yahoo will stay on top.
Google has some services running for them, like Google Earth and Google Maps.
Coming back to the above post.
It is no surprise that Google Japan has stopped it’s practice and even apologized. This is also something common in Japan.
Even so it is perfectly fine to do what they did, the negative reaction outside Japan cause them to apologize in Japan.
Google is Devil
The citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. ,
Heck yeah, I’ll write something nice about Google for some cash