世論 What Japan Thinks

No serious internet user should be without Google, and this research conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into Google service awareness shows that many Japanese use it heavily.

Demographics

On the 11th of August 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private on-line questionnaire. 76.1% of the sample were male, 9.4% in their twenties, 37.9% in their thirties, 40.3% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

As Yahoo! beats Google in Japan for most aspects, I’d love to see similar questions asked about that portal too.

Note that this survey was conducted after the Japanese versions of Google Maps Street View was launched, and although Q1SQ1 does not mention it, I wonder if Google Maps was included within the Google Earth answer? I also wonder if AdSense was grouped with AdWords.
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I noticed during the last month or so that a few times Debito’s blog went a bit funny, spewing out random characters instead of the usual blog, behaviour that some might argue was an improvement, I suspect.

However, today (21st May) I got a hit from someone searching for “Debito”, so I did the same search to see what was going on and:

Eh, no debito.org! The site is still running, but even trying the site-specific site:debito.org turns up not a sausage.

I also noticed that Occidentalism.org dropped off Google recently, but I susupect the reason for that was due to a lot of keyword stuffing in hidden text, something that doesn’t seem to be happening at Debito’s site.

You may remember the Neko-punch Google-slap I got for running Text Link Ads that I reported on last year. Having seen my income die horribly in AdSense then slowly wither through Text Link Ads, I finally decided to ditch TLA, then use Google’s Webmaster Tools to beg for my PageRank back. I did this on Sunday, and checking today I noticed I’d got my two lost ranks back. I’ll watch to see if this has any significant effect on my AdSense, although talking to another who was in the same boat I don’t hold out much hope.

I would say thanks to Bloomberg, but I don’t think they deserve it. I posted on Sunday about Shane’s tale of the poison gas recipe, and I see they’ve now updated their story to remove the unnecessarily-detailed information of how to make the gas.

Oh, and the animated neko punch (cat punch) gif above is doing the rounds of Japanese mobiles. I’ve set it up as the backdrop for all the various mail exchange actions on my phone too, so please feel free to steal it off me!

Google rightfully beats Yahoo! hands down for English language search, but I never seem to have too much luck with Google and Japanese. I stay away from Yahoo! Japan as I find the design extremely ugly, but this doesn’t seem to be a factor with the natives according to a survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into information gathering through search portal sites.

Demographics

Between the 31st of January and the 3rd of February 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either public or private industry completed an internet-based questionnaire. 80.9% were male, 10.0% in their twenties, 40.0% in their thirties, 37.3% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

One thing I’m not sure if Yahoo! Japan does, but it is something that Google definitely doesn’t, is to search alternative verb forms, so that if you put in the infinitive it also searches past tense, progressive, passive, and so one. That would be nice, but top of my wish list would be alternative kanji and kana alternatives for a word; for example, skin clinic could appear as 皮膚科, 皮フ科, ひふ科 or even ヒフ科, so it would be nice if I typed in just one form and the search engine matched all the variants.
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Following on from a post a couple of weeks ago about this site getting Google-slapped and me highlighting that Japan Today had prominent paid links on its front page, I now see that Japan Today too has been hit by a three-point penalty, down to PageRank 4 from PageRank 7. As it has recently changed hands, I wonder how much the PageRank 7 figured in the evaluation of the sales price?

Additionally, I’ve had a question from one of my friends about what to do, as they have noticed a drop in traffic. First off, I have not noticed a drop myself; indeed Google Images and Yahoo! traffic are both up whilst standard Google search is holding steady and the keywords I want to rank for have been if anything improving, but as with all search engine issues the changes are usually subtle and take a few weeks to manifest themselves. However, my AdSense earnings have halved in the last month, but I don’t know how much of that is due to being Google-slapped and how much is due to other factors. Another friend in this niche who hasn’t been selling links has also mentioned their AdSense revenue has died.

If you have been slapped, one measure you can take is to remove all sold links and ask Google for a re-evaluation of your PageRank penalty. However, I am yet to see any definite evidence that the PageRank penalty is anything more than a cosmetic change; most Search Engine Optimisers judge displayed PageRank to be nothing more than a rough estimate of relevance and the slap is not a change to the core relevancy calculations but merely a tweak upon an output estimate.

My personal opinion (based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever!) is that Google is wanting to stop link dealers and paid post dealers using PageRank as part of their equation when evaluating what price to sell links or posts at. Here’s a good post from Twenty Steps on why he thinks Google did what they did.

However, if you want to get your PageRank back (but there’s no promises that this will work) you should drop all paid links, then through the Webmaster Tools at Google request reinclusion or re-evaluation of your site, and hope…

Looking at the Google Webmaster Guidelines, they say:

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

I stand by my links as they are relevant to the theme of the site; if someone wanted to advertise printer ink or used cars I’d reject these links for a lack of relevancy.

I love search engines, not least because they are responsible for generating about 75% of my AdSense income! I get barely any traffic from Japanese-language searches, however. To find out a bit more about what the Japanese do with them, as reported by japan.internet.com, JR Tokai Express recently conducted a survey into the rather grandly titled subject of information gathering power of search portal sites.

Demographics

On the 7th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were employed in the public or private sector (why limit to these, I don’t know. Perhaps there was additional questions on work-based usage patterns?) answered an internet-based questionnaire. 82.3% of the sample was male, 12.3% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 38.9% in their forties, 8.4% in their fifties, and 0.3%, or just one person, was in their sixties.

I’d love to know where people most often get their answers from. If the Japanese keyword side of the search engines are as polluted with Wikipedia results as the English side, then perhaps a lot of people are taking the Wikipedia results at face value. There was an interesting case this week about how a rogue edit, making the recently-deceased Ronny Halzehurst a co-author of a pop hit, was copied by lazy journalists, and now these newspaper’s error is used to back up the veracity of Wikipedia’s disinformation.
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Last week we learnt that almost all Japanese net users used Google, and indeed almost 50% claimed to use it always, although Gen Kanai did alert me that the figures were most likely dud. To back up his claim, I now present a survey reported on by japan.internet.com, performed by Cross Marketing Inc, on search engine access.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23 of August 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing Inc online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, the sample was evenly split; 50:50 male and female, and 25:25:25:25 from each of the age groups from twenties to fifties.

For myself, I am very rarely unfaithful to Google; whenever the need to access Yahoo! or MSN comes up, I search Google for the engine rather than have any bookmark at the ready. Wifey on the other hand has MSN Japan as her home page and has both Yahoo! and Google toolbars installed. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her use the Yahoo! bar, though, but that’s another matter altogether.

I’m not sure how to interpret the results in Q1SQ1 and Q1SQ2 – why do a larger percentage of Google users have other search engines bookmarked? Is it due to more knowledge of their tools, more power users, or is it that Google does not fully meet Japanese users’ needs?
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Recently, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into awareness of Google services.

Demographics

On the 7th of August 2007 335 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel who were mployed in public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The male-female ratio was not reported, but 16.1% were in their twenties, 37.9% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 8.4% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

I noted the omission of my favourite Google web application, Google Reader, their online feed reader. Indeed, it’s been quite I while since I last saw an RSS usage survey.

Also, it’s interesting they mention AdWords, the advertisers’ side of Google’s advertising empire, not the publishers’ side, AdSense, which I would have thought would have been more familiar.

CAVEAT: Thanks to Gen Kanai for highlighting the big flaw in this poll, namely that the figures suggest half of all web users always use Google. The text given in Japanese used “always” for the first answer in Q1, but perhaps “frequently” would be a closer reflection on reality. Previous surveys, and a forthcoming one too, suggests people favour Yahoo! by a considerable margin, so the presented 49.0% always using Google must be incorrect.
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japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into what brands people associate with internet services. Over three days at the start of February 1,083 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online questionnaire. The male-female split was half-and-half to three significant digits; there was one more male than female respondent. 13.5% were in their teens, 11.5% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 18.2% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 22.0% in their sixties.

On a statistical note, recently goo Research’s samples seem to be more balanced both sex and age-wise; they used to be around 55:45 male to female and biased towards the thirties age group, but this is the second time recently I’ve noticed a more balanced age spread.

I reported on a similar survey conducted this time last year, so it may be instructive to cross-reference. Google has surpassed Yahoo! for search; this trend is also visible, but not so strongly, in actual search engine use. Regarding shopping, Rakuten Marketplace retains their huge lead over Amazon, perhaps due in part to their bordering-on-spam use (abuse!) that they make of your mail address, one reason I will never shop there. They do not have a one-click unsubscribe option, and they freely share your mail address between all the shops there. Even if you just use the Y-Not! free email greeting card service that they bought out last year, they automatically subscribe you to their system and pass the address on to their shops. You have been warned!
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Over two days back in October last year, goo Research interviewed 2,215 members of its business monitor community regarding office design issues. The particular aspect of office design that they were interested in is what might be called “functional design”, namely design with the aim of improving employee motivation or communication, or other such positive effects. The sample consisted of 14.5% in their twenties, 40.5% in their thirties, 32.5% in their forties, 10.7% in their fifties, 1.6% in their sixties, and 0.1% aged seventy or older.

Regarding employment status, 8.9% were at board level, 77.3% were regular full-time employees, 2.3% contract full-time employees, 1.5% were short-term contractors, and 10.0% had other status. 8.2% were in real estate, 23.9% in manufacture, 4.7% in finance and insurance, 6.1% in distribution, 1.3% in utilities, 5.3% in import/export, 22.8% in the service sector, 8.6% in the public sector, and 19.0% in other industries. 18.6% worked in companies or between 1 and 9 employees, 13.5% in those between 10 and 49 employees, 8.1% with 50 to 99 employees, 19.4% with 100 to 499 employees, 8.0% with 500 to 999 employees, and 32.4% in companies with 1,000 or more employees. The sex breakdown is not given, however.

My office is a pretty typical Japanese office; open plan with token partitions that barely hide you from other members, although looking around other parts of the building we have it lucky in having even just these token walls. I find that the offices are exceptionally noisy, as people just shout across the place, and sadly I dislike headphones of ear buds, so cannot get much respite from the din.
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