The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) recently released the "2011 China Search Engine Market Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report shows that by the third quarter of 2011, the number of search engine users reached 396 million, with user growth slowing down. Meanwhile, more specialized vertical search engines saw significant development in 2011.
In terms of search habits, 81.0% of internet users still directly go to professional search websites' homepages to conduct searches. Secondarily, 39.6% of users input keywords into their browser address bars to search. Internet users enter search engines through various means; besides these two methods mentioned above, navigation websites, browser search bars, and chat tools are also major entry points for users accessing search engines, with usage ratios reaching 34.2%, 31.4%, and 28.1% respectively.
As Chinese internet users become increasingly mature, while they remain users of comprehensive search engines, more segmented needs are being met through vertical search engines. This trend became even more apparent in 2011. In the competition for vertical product search users, three forces are at play: comprehensive search engines, vertical search engines, and website internal search functions provided by product service suppliers.
Currently, the number of users for comprehensive search engines is very large, but the number of users for vertical search engines and website internal searches is growing rapidly.
From the perspective of product searches, around 15% of users use specialized vertical search engines or shopping website internal searches. For video searches, internal searches on video websites are stronger, accounting for a ratio of 23.2%, with the usage ratios of specialized vertical search engines and video website internal searches being 9.9% and 23.2% respectively. Music searches follow a similar pattern, with the proportion of internal searches on music websites reaching 28.3%, surpassing the 21.7% who use music search features provided by comprehensive search engines.
Additionally, the top three types of content users search for via search engines are news, videos, and music, with user ratios being 47.7%, 45.2%, and 41.6% respectively. Most comprehensive search engines already provide vertical search functions for these three types of content. The search rate for novels and other literary works is 23.7%, with the user base already reaching 94 million. Search engines remain the primary traffic source for literary websites.
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