The two giant Internet search engines, Baidu (www.baidu.cn) and Google (www.google.cn), have occupied more than 80 percent of China's search engine market together, in the third quarter this year. The former occupies 60.5 percent and the latter, 23.7 percent, according to Analysys International, a research and consultant institute about technology, media and telecom (TMT) industries in China.

Other well-known websites such as Microsoft, Yahoo (www.yahoo.cn), Sina (www.sina.com.cn) and Sohu (www.sohu.com.cn) are vying for the remaining piece of the pie, so to speak. In July 2007, Yodao (www.yodao.com) became the last comprehensive website to join the commercial battle. In addition, there are hundreds of search engines attempting to create "vertical searching", a method that focuses on seeking out a special field, a special group of people, or a special service.

Will latecomers to the show still have a chance?

Looking for seams

"People often face problems during their English studies," said Zhou Feng, Yodao's Senior Vice President of Search Operations, "such as how to translate titles of Chinese films or the names of Chinese dishes into English, or find out the full form of certain abbreviations that are not present in ordinary dictionaries.

"We developed this product -- Yodao -- to address problems that can't be solved by ordinary printed dictionaries, or even by Internet-based dictionaries."

He demonstrated the company's new product in his office in Tsinghua Science Park. When he typed the English words "The Departed" in Yodao's new "vast dictionary" tool, the screen showed him the translation in Chinese, and told him this was an American film. Also, when he typed gongbao jiding in Chinese, the engine tells him in English that it's a dish -- diced chicken with chili pepper.

An engineer at Yodao found the "seam" in the market, a discovery that prompted Yodao to come up with the dictionary. The company has great hopes for the dictionary, Zhou said, though it accounts for only 20 percent of the resources -- the company's strategy is to allocate 50 percent of its energy and resources into major products, 30 percent into foreseeing products and the remaining 20 percent into trial products such as the dictionary.

The Yodao dictionary is backed by Internet paraphrasing technology. This unique technology is able to dig up data from hundreds of millions of web pages, conduct text analysis, find English names and abbreviations including films and TV operas, brands, reputed people's surnames and technical terms. In addition, the dictionary will be constantly enriched and updated in accompaniment with the progress of the Internet.

Besides "vast dictionary", Yodao also features other service tools --web search, picture search and blog search. Each of them has certain characteristics. For instance, the blog search offers a statistic report after analyzing blogs.

"Which would you choose between an updated version of iPod and an MP3 player produced by Rio Co.? I believe that clients never refuse the better products," said Zhou, full of confidence for Yodao.

Zhang Yaqin, Vice President of Microsoft and the President of China Research and Development Group, held that current search engines, capable of finding only 10 percent of the information on Internet, should develop further from the current starting point.

Statistics show that the number of web pages in Chinese currently stands between 10 billion and 15 billion. However, search engines in Chinese can only tap 4 billion to 5 billion of them. As a result, people using Chinese search engines fail to come across a bulk of information, compared with people using search engines in English.

This is a clear indication of the potential within this market. Yodao aims to provide clients with one-station search instruments that include individual telecommunications, individual information and community channels. In fact, the company's search technology has already combined with channel products. For instance, users of 163.net will find an additional dictionary tool on the same e-mail page, which makes it more convenient for them since they do not have to open a new browser window to look for a word's meaning. Furthermore, netizens will find a "related blog" column in Yodao's "news event" page. The blog search tool puts together bloggers' remarks for the same piece of news, once more fostering convenience.

"Searching is a core technology for Internet portals," said Zhou. "And several websites currently attempt to develop interface by blending search tools with their own businesses."

According to Analysys International, QQ.com is making use of its client end to promote a search engine; China's Yahoo is moving from search tools to personality and community products; and Zhongsou.com is growing from developing search tools to providing individual products.

Opportunities for vertical searching

Given the expanding content of the Internet and the mushrooming of the number of Internet users, people often come across useless information. This is one of the defects of comprehensive search engines.

"Comprehensive search engines, put up by malls or supermarkets for instance, provide various products but lack detailed information about some sectors, so they fail to meet the needs of some clients," said Zhang Xiangdong, CEO of www.com.cn.

However, vertical search engines, like a franchised store selling one product, are playing a supplementary role to comprehensive websites. Vertical search engines set their tools to detailed categories such as tourism, shopping, jobs, housing and local services. Clients thus find all the specific information they need, efficiently. If one looks for a second-hand vehicle on Google or Baidu, the process is often like looking for a needle in a haystack. But a search engine specializing in vehicles will dig up the requisite information rapidly and easily.

At present, hundreds of vertical search sites are available in China, including www.258.com, which serves businesspeople; www.Qunar.com, the largest search engine in Chinese, worldwide, which provides services for tourists; and www.kooxoo.com, serving those looking for houses or train tickets.

"In the near future, the growth of horizontal search websites, led mainly by Baidu, will become moderately slow, but emerging search engines represented by vertical search, forum search and local search, are expected to increase at a growth rate of 30 percent," according to www.ccidconsulting.cn.

There are many newly created search engines making use of opportunities on the Internet abroad. Take SimplyHired, for example, a professional research engine that provides a platform to make it easy to find jobs in any given place. This includes contacting methods, wage levels, and wage disparities when compared with other regions. The advantage it has over other job-finding websites is that it provides specific information about specific things, such as employers who need older employees, employers who allow employees to bring their dogs to work, etc.

Spock is a website on a trial phase, specializing in looking up people. Type a name, and that person's personal information, including the full name, sex, age and photograph, as well as names of related people, pops up. You can also amend your own information.

Baidu and Google, of course, are trying to fill as many as Internet seams as possible by creating professional search services under their search tools.

"It's impossible for Google to make every product perfect among so many rivals," said Chen Hua, founder of Kooxoo.

The rumor is that Google will take over SimplyHired; if this happens, it may spell the beginning of a new battle for the Internet market.

(Source: China Internet Weekly, edited and translated by LI YUZHU)