China’s leading search engine Baidu stock fell sharply after the bad news of its sales practice. Some medical product companies can pay Baidu to get a high ranking in the search engine results.
It might be the pressure from Wall Street as a public company to maintain revenue growth. But in the long run, the action should destroy its brand image. And who could benefit from the error: Google, Yahoo.
Google had passed Overture in PPC advertising by not accepting paid inclusion and now the chance showed up to Google again in China.
For an emerging market such as Vietnam (behind China online market 3 to 5 years?) while Google is an incumbent search service, the chance for local search players is at niche market like video, music, local search. But be prepared not to burn yourself with some “pretty money” from clients. Put users experience first and your services would win the heart and mind of clients too.

Technorati Tags: Baidu, China, Google