Symbols and Search Engine Optimization in China

You should rather find out which exactly is your target group and which kind of content and information do they like. This should be decided not by you or your Chinese staff which is living in US for the last 5 years already. You should ask an in China living Chinese.

• Which age is your target audience?
• Rather male or female?
• Studied or only highschool level?
• Pre- or Post internet generation?
• Into instant messaging - or rather not so much?
• Likes, dislikes, hobbies?
• ...

Each one target group is different and uses diferent vocabulary and symbols to communicate. More traditional people might be scared off if you are using internet born word-symbols like "三Q". Others might even prefer webstes using such symbols.

A clever SEO knows his target audience and knows which words they are using and which they don't. Even a searchengine might know such things already and take into consideration which content to rank for which people - at least they know to rank which content for which search phrases.

三Q

This small word combined of the Chinese Character 三 which means the number 3 and the latin letter Q does not has anything todo with "three" or with "Q" at all. It is spoken out load as something that sounds like "sun Q" and is supposed to sound similar to "thank you".

Young people use this Chinglish word to say thanks. And even older people like my father in law thinks if he says "sun Q" I will see knows some English (which simply sounds weird).

To young people this symbol might look like "wow, a fancy website that knows how to talk with youngsters" as they usually use such written out words in WeChat chats or Weibo posts. They might stay longer on your website.

Older people might leave your website as soon as possible, not because they do not understand "三Q" but because they expect more of this stuff and they only know "三Q" ;-) ... or because they were looking for a trustworthy website and how could a website raping the good old Chinese language be trustworthy?

How does Baidu see this?

First of all, 三Q is a combination of a Chinese and a foreign Character. 50% each. The more such non-Chinese characters are in use, the more non-Chinese is your website. For a regular Chinese website using such words only a few times, you will end up with something like 99% Chinese Characters which is pretty normal - many well trusted websites do use western alphabet letters sometimes. But if you overdo it Baidu might give you a little malus on your positive points list.

Let's come to the vocabulary. Baidu might already know such words - pretty sure they do. And they do measure how well people click on search results that use such words in Title and Description. They can even measure which kind of people and for which kind of search phrases do or do not click on such search results. They also can measure how many people click the "go back to the search results"-button after they hit a website that uses such words in their regular website content. They again can measure which kind of people act this way and which don't. They will draw conclusions about the search phrase and the user's behaviour.

This way Baidu doesn't need to see it as black or white but as colorful. Depending on the user, his behaviour in the past and the search phrase he is using Baidu might deliver such a website devalued in the position or even in first position.

Is Baidu really that far? Well, my observations do not show such individualized search results yet. But they could certainly do so. And if I was Baidu, one day I would exactly do as described above.

Until then, I do not recommend to use or not to use such youth talk phrases ... but think about your audience - will they appreciate you using such symbols? If you come up in your persona analysis (talking with in China living natives of different age-groups about your topic, target audience, setting up personas that are the ideal users of your website) that shows that they will like such symbols to be seen within your website - you should definitly use them ... or don't if your preferred target audience would rather dislike it.