The Ashes

China has just announced that their Baidu.com search engine is going to focus on a search engine for the elderly.  They are going to call it Baidu Elderly Search.  The search engine is patterned after Google’s design and layout with one major difference.  All the pages they will feature will provide larger fonts.  They are also going to focus on logging pages which will interest the elder generations.  Teenage options will not be the focus.  Instead popular pastimes, Tai Chi, pet information, etc. will be the focus.

Baidu already has search sites for children and the blind.  You might wonder what importance this has for search engine optimisation.  First the sites are launched only in China, so if you have a global company that you might want to find targets in China for you must consider these search engine options.  If your supplies will do well for the elderly, children, or the blind you will want to make your site fit within the search engine parameters for optimisation.

SEO strategy for a specific target on a targeted website can be easier.  You often find less competition, but still you will want to consider how it works.  Baidu’s elderly page does not have a lot of graphics, text or ads.  In fact there are no ads currently on the search engine.

Some experts do not find the targeted search engine worthwhile.  After all, the number of elderly users is relatively small.  The designers on the other hand state the reason there are so few older individuals on the net is because there is a lack of search engines to target them.  Older generations do not care for the ads or the clutter.  They want to be able to find and read what they are interested in.

For SEO in the Chinese market it is imperative to consider if making a site for their search engine is worthy.  You might also consider if things will change for the UK.  Should you be targeting generations with your SEO strategy?  And if so, how would you target the older generations versus the younger?  You may not be able to target every single person, but there are some SEO concessions you can make that helps you target a specific generation over the other.  You still want to create an SEO strategy that follows the keyword and quality guidelines, but how you create ads or graphics may differ.