CompuWorld

Chinese research company Intelliconsulting released a report (in Chinese) on the search result preferences of 2,740 web users that participated in a 12 day blind test.

Whenever they did a search during the test period they didn’t know whether they were searching with Baidu or Google. The software used for this Blind Test was developed by Tsinghua University (Beijing). More information on the method Intelliconsulting used is not available at this time.

Participants had to rate 8 different type of search results: news, Internet and technology, finance/business, entertainment, shopping/dining, travel/transportation, science/culture/education, and government services/public information.

The main conclusion, as given in search engine journal, of the research is that Google delivers more satisfying results than Baidu. 48.2% for Google, 39.8% for Baidu.

Another noteworthy part of the research is that the more a respondent uses search engines, the better he likes the results of Google.

The respondents were also asked what they didn’t like about the search results.

The instability of Google’s website, thanks mostly to the great Chinese firewall, was seen as negative as well as having no page-caching. The fact that Google doesn’t offer a search functionality for free mp3’s and other downloadable entertainment was also not appreciated.

The instability of Google’s website is a matter of politics whereas mp3 search is more likely a matter of law.