Japanese find ways to navigate web even before IDNs.
In an article titled “Domain names? We don’t need no domain names”, IDG News Service writer Martyn Williams explains how the Japanese use the search box in lieu of domain names.
Instead of typing Google.com into their browsers, they search for Google at Yahoo.
On the Yahoo site they type in “Google” to get taken to the home page, bypassing the address bar in their browsers and registering another search for Google in Yahoo’s rankings. In 2008 so many surfers used Yahoo to get to the Google home page that it placed as the fourth most searched term of the year — a position it also held in 2007.
Advertisers in Japan often don’t include a domain name and instead show a picture of a search box with the desired search term in it in Japanese. (I think I’ve seen a picture of this on a domain blog before but can’t find it.)
Apparently this originated because of lack of internationalized domain names where Japanese characters could be used. It was a pain for broadcasters to spell out every letter of an English-language, latin-character domain name.
And it’s infinitely easier than typing out the URLs read out of TV and radio broadcasts, which sound like something from mission control. Imagine if you were watching the sports news and instead of hearing “You can get more at ESPN dot com” hearing “You can get more at “eitch-tee-tee-pee-colon-slash-slash-w-w-w-dot-e-s-p-n-dot-com.” It just isn’t easy on the ears.
Second level IDNs are now available, and soon we’ll see top level IDNs. Will this change Japanese web surfers’ habits?
Update: Here’s a photo from a reader:
“(I think I’ve seen a picture of this on a domain blog before but can’t find it.)”
Andrew,
I saw the same thing before.
I believe it was a domain blog referencing another blog and I think this was it:
http://sn.im/boxsearch
If that was not it, it will still serve the purpose.
I’ve seen this search term advertising before in Japan, and it has always struck me as quite strange.
Being a believer in the future power of IDN, it is somewhat reassuring to know that generally speaking, english language domain names are obviously not working for such a radical strategy to be used instead – is IDN the answer? maybe it is.
But I do think it is rather strange that a marketing budget can be placed at the mercy of not only the search engines, but other competing advertisers. You could see how this would work out, Avertiser A spends $x advertising to “search for Term A to find their wesbite”. But the sneaky competitors rather than spending $x, spend a fraction of $x instead on SEO and SEM and rank way higher. It’s been going on for years, but surely you have to question the strategy.. but then again, if thats your only option (today), then what choice do you have?
@ Gary – it seems odd to me too. So when IDN.IDN top level domains are released, will that be enough to convince people to use them? Or could it also give rebirth to IDN.TLD?
Seems like a great opportunity for the competition if you ask me. If you are the competition for a company that is advertising like this on TV, they pay for the tv ad, which in turn drives people to search for this term. So to compete and steal their thunder just place the high bid for that term and be the #1 sponsored result. You show up above their name then.
Am I missing something here?
it’s true that’s, here in Japan, in train ads and billboards (both exorbitantly expensive) you find this little search boxes in them and no reference to domain names. but those are big fat corporations that have huge budgets for advertising. they do SEO + Adwords (a lot) + offline advertising.
your regular small business owners can in no way afford to spend that much.
a combination of a good domain name (preferably IDN) and good SEO gets very high up the search engines and it costs a lot less.
I have been following this for some time and wrote a detailed article:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/89228_japan_domain_name_market/
The Japanese market is very unique.
I don’t think the Japanese are alone here. They may advertise this way because they’ve studied or know what their consumers tend to do. I think TONS of people type urls in to search even when they know where they want to go. It’s just habit.
adam – in this case they aren’t typing URLs into search. they’re typing keywords
The google example here is not good to explain this. If you look at UK searches using wordtracker, one of the top searches will be “Google” across metacrawler and dogpile also. But the search in carried out in Japan is very interesting.
I often see foreigners having wrong ideas about Japanese IDNs and Japanese culture etc. They complain “It is odd that people in Japan do this and do that in their own way without following our standards. We can’t make money.”
Well, those search ads are unique and interesting to me. We have our own Internet culture, which is the Japanese standard. Just accept it.
Also, IDNs are defective in many ways while ASCII characters work well in reality. No wonder IDNs are unpopular. Simple as that.
Truth – what amazes “foreigners” is that Japanese don’t have any standards. they Just copy things and do them in wrong way.
they are like a herd of sheep, 2 or 3 big corporations conspire and decide something and then everybody follows.