Mandarin & Cantonese Reviews

We got a Review submission in the last 2 days, in perfect English anchor text and description and the review completed the submission 100%

So then when we came to review the site was 100% in Mandarin but was a genuine site (not MFA or similar), so we looked into this more and we have decided to open up 2 new categories in

Mandarin
http://www.forplex.com/Mandarin/Hong_Kong/
&
Cantonese
http://www.forplex.com/Cantonese/Hong_Kong/


Now at this time we are only testing but as over 95% of Hong Kong folks speak and write fluently both English and Cantonese/Mandarin on that basis we decided to test with the 2 new categories

We realize that western browsers will not pick up the Chinese characters but all browsers accessed with Chinese operating systems on Chinese IE etc will

Our commitment is to our review listings and our visitors, on that basis we are testing alternative language reviews.

The Chinese market is not large its simply huge, and that means there is a huge market for reviews from the Chinese region.

Comments, help and advice welcome please :-

Thanks

 

It's very good to include non English listings. There is a growing market for non English speaking web surfers. I can only encourage everyone to include non English sites as well as long as you can somehow verify that the content is unique and suitable for a listing.

Mike

 

Thanks Mike for that valued advice and input, we had some one who could read the characters so that enabled us to make the decision of give a Review Refund or accept the Review

We selected to accept the Review and he has already emailed back saying thanks and saying that he will tell his buddies and recommend us

 

That is great. I would add sections by language. Not everybody who uses web directories uses English. It's time to reach out for the many who want to do business in their own language. Great opportunity to become an international business web directory.

 

I'd say it's a good call to include non-English. I've had a few submitted through to Jooomla and a pass through Google's page translation service gets me enough info to know whether the site is worthwhile including. Must admit I've not had a Mandarin submission yet but I'm sure the day will come...

 

We need some time with this section to evaluate the what will be required to open up the Cantonese & Mandarin Market

And see what the feedback entails and the tweaks that may be needed

 

I have started learning one Chinese language, its just a hobby, do you think this might be useful then in the directory market

Mind you, the script is quite hard on me, so I wonder

 

check out my china directory

I only include chinese website with english version on, or english sites which has business in China.

be honest with you, i don't think there will be many chinese websites with chinese version to be submitted into english directories.

firstly, language barrier of course, not many chinese webmasters can read english site;

secondly, currently there are plenty of chinese directories out there, so for sure, chinese webmaster will submit their sites to bespoken chinese directories, for instance, hao123.com, coodir.com;

finally, and most importantly, current chinese version of paypal doesn't work with us paypal or uk paypal;

 

In my directory we have 2 Danish sites and 1 Slovak....I just put them in Regional category with sub cat Danish and Europe respectively.

I'm fine with Danish, Swedish and Norwegian since i can speak the language

 

Having spent over 10 years working in China, Hong Kong, Macau and many other regional areas I can assure all, that the level of bi-lingual and tri-lingual readers and writers of Mandarin, Cantonese and English is over 100 Million minimum

That represents a huge opportunity that is well worth persuing

And indeed have received over 20 emails today alone specifically asking to submit Chinese Reviews

On that basis we will continue to progress to see what develops

 

certainly you are right about the number of bi-linugal chinese, considering the population of China

but i am not sure whether your site is targeting on chinese or english audiences or both?

anyway, I wish you good luck on your business!

 

At Ask we are prepared for this from day 1,
http://ask-dir.com/World/Chinese/ (PR4)
Only thing missing is submissions

 

There are only 2 Chinese words in China, the Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, Cantonese is just a dialect.

Personally, I am only interest in english directory, non-english websites is not easy to read and review as we only can learn 2 or 3 languages.

 

i have such advantage for this, but I honestly don't think this is a big cake for me, so instead, I choose to start a directory in english, that's china directory.

 

Actually that category is wrong.

Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken Chinese, no one separate website like that.

Chinese website are separate by simplify Chinese (used in China, 簡) and traditional Chinese (used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, 繁). They are written Chinese. However, if you don't have a Chinese editor, i don't think you know which is which.

Just 2 cent from someone who speak Chinese

Both website listed in the Mandarin & Cantonese section are in traditional Chinese and about Hong Kong

 

I can help you do alot chinese submissions if they are free. I don't think directory business would go fine in China or I would start it 2 years ago. Most people would not use english to talk and write, so you would get few english submission for chinese websites.

BTW, some of them are illegal, baidu is the largest

 

you are damn correct

you should differentiate by simplified chinese (简体) and traditional chinese （繁体）

 

yup, instead, do a Chinese directory for Chinese live in foreign country. I know a guy who run a Chinese business directory for New york area, he is making quite some cash from it

 

well, chinese directory business have already started years ago, maybe as well as english starts, and most of them are chinese version. I haven't seen the way that english site for chinese submission. i personally think there is no way out for this. but if you start an chinese directory for chinese submission, I think there are still market there, although market has been shared by some bespoken chinese directories.

what britishguy's point is that he is using english site for chinese submission, and the site's audience are mainly english, but not many english read chinese!

ps: baidu is not a leader in directory market, it is just a search engine, I don't like it

 

Thanks for the 'heads up' on the characters we will edit