It is true that one hosts a website in order to profit from it in whatever capacity. As such, it comes a shocking blow to know that as of 2008, officials in Thailand have blocked viewership to over 2300 websites to locals.  The major reason cited for such mass blockage is security and defamation of the government.

This becomes important keeping in mind that the political scenario in Thailand is not too stable and anything that’s cited against the king isn’t taken too well. Sites banned also include pornographic sites. The strange part of this analysis is the 90% of these sites are hosted overseas which means that international website owners stand to suffer. What may be viewed as acceptable and informational content elsewhere in the word is a taboo in Thailand?

Banned sites include those containing cartoons, articles, blogs and even YouTube videos. Thailand isn’t the first country to be practicing such large scale banning and this is popularly carried out in China too. In fact China tops the list in terms of stringency but news of banned sites elsewhere will influence website owners to review their content so as to not face the ire of threatened governments across the globe.

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We’re all pretty familiar with the well reported search landscape of the US/UK. But, in other parts of the world, the search engine landscape is very different. So, it becomes essential that you identify with the larger picture, and thus knowing search engine markets in China, Japan and Russia helps for all who are seeking PPC opportunities in countries where Google is not the last word and where such PPC opportunities are limitless.

If you’re keen in the Chinese market, it’s good to know that their online growth is phenomenal and they are projected to be very important in regards to online advertisements and e-commerce in the coming years. In the Chinese domain, Baidu is the foremost search engine and leaves Google trailing far behind. Though it is argued that Baidus policies aren’t crystal clear and their search quality is questionable, they continue to be leaders.

If it’s the Japanese market that interests you, it’s Yahoo! That rules the roost. However, one must remember that Japanese search engines will not reveal actual search statistics. It’s a very potential market because there is a large number of web users and too many people use mobile web services too.

The Russian market shows allegiance to Yandex with Google trying hard to find a foothold. Certain countries even have government exposure in the search engine front, so be careful where you venture with your PPC opportunities.

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Google certainly is trying to get a stronghold in the internet market. Apart from wooing regular English speaking surfers, it’s decided to introduce the perfect Chinese treat; we now have the Google China Blog Search. What seemed a potential announced is reality in less than no time. Their attempt for new clustered results which was only just the action plan posted on the Google blog search has now seen the light of day. If you go to their clustered home page, here’s what you’ll see, the Google China Blog Search.

So, you may ask what is so phenomenal about this new development. First thing first, it is first launch of the non English blogsearch interface that’s been launched. As the name suggests, it caters to only Chinese language blogs. Of course, this is just the start and soon you can expect more launches in this arena. It’s all new and very exciting. This takes us to another realm of reality. How wide is the internet spectrum and how far will things go? This certainly calls for celebration because now Chinese blogs will get a much needed platform and the world gets to hear what the once staunch communists have to say. One thing though: will the Chinese government scan everything before actual uploading like in the recent past.

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