Some months ago local media bombarded article stating that Vietnamese people were most interested in Sex based on Google Trends. However we just tried the Google Insights for Search with some keywords relating to Sex and found out some interesting figures:

For Sex keyword: Vietnam is the second after Pakistan in volume of search, but plus Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India made South Asia on top, North Africa is the second group.

Update: 21st September down to 4th position

For Porn: no clear winner but Bangladesh is till the runner-up

With Nude keyword: all top five positions went to South Asian countries with Pakistan and Bangladesh shared the top.

Tried a combination of video + sex: Cambodia took the crown, but Bangladesh is the second again plus two other South Asian (India, Sri Lanka)

From these results we can say that Vietnamese people are far behind South Asian people in searching Sex related keywords. Bangladesh is truly the top country that its people most interested in sex matters using search service from Google. Maybe Vietnamese Internet users are not as sophisticated as South Asians in using keywords.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Trends, Insights, sex, Trends, Vietnam

Web metrics provider Alexa just announced the New Alexa Rankings with new algorithms that pushed most of Vietnamese websites’ ranking down overnight. In fact it is a good news for marketers in Vietnam since Vietnamese online publishers used to set Alexa ranking as a norm of traffic measurement and monetization. Last year a news portal in Vietnam even posted a headline saying VnExpress in Global Top 100 Websites and near the line of CNN.com and BBC Newsline. Ironically it said Alexa was the only independent and objective ranking system of web metrics worldwide. Actually many international marketers and advertisers had left Alexa for other web metrics/analytics service such as comScore, Hitwise, Compete and Nielsen//NetRatings. Among the fierce competition, comScore had became the leader with reports can send Google’ shares down significantly.

Since online advertising is emerging as an important piece of media and branding communication strategy of marketers in Vietnam, the need for more accurate web metrics is so strong and a pretty room for web analytics services. AC Nielsen Vietnam can catch up the opportunity monitoring online media landscape with its acquired services such as NetRatings, BuzzMetrics while TNS dominates old media tracking.

What about Vietnamese online publishers? Be prepared to be more transparent and look into other measurements beyond traffics such as SEO, SEM, engagement, behavioral advertising.

Technorati Tags: Compete, comScore, Google, Hitwise, Nielsen, Publishers