14 DAY TRIAL // The Chinese company Intelliconsulting recently conducted a market research that revealed that Google finally managed to beat the Chinese rival Baidu after the users preferred the Mountain View company as their default search engine. The tests included 2,740 Chinese internet users who didn't know which search technology they use, having to choose the best one for a total of 8 categories such as news, Internet and technology, finance/business, entertainment, shopping/dining, travel/transportation, science/culture/education and government services/public information. According to the Search Engine Journal, Google was the winner with 48.2 percent while Baidu recorded only 39.8 percent.
"35.7% of the participants indicated that they didn't appreciate that Baidu's natural search results were mixed with advertising. The respondents also didn't like the fact that results don't include Chinese content from websites outside of China and that they don't seem objective. The instability of Google's website, thanks mostly to the great Chinese firewall, was seen as negative as well as having no page-caching. The fact that Google doesn't offer a search functionality for free mp3's and other downloadable entertainment was also not appreciated," the same source explained.
The battle between Google and Baidu is extremely important for the Mountain View company as it strives to expand its products into the rich Chinese market. However, the local Google alias Baidu managed to attract the majority of users with its Google-like solutions. At this time, the search giant is probably thinking at new ways to conquer China after it opened a lot of new offices and designed new flavors of the products for the Chinese users. This is quite the most important win recorded by Google in the battle with Baidu so we should expect for new moves soon. Meanwhile, Baidu seems to like "the best defense is the attack" motto and prepares to start the European expansion.