Baidu’s share of searches in China increased 6% from Q4 to Q1. Google redirecting visitors from mainland China to their Hong Kong site doesn’t seem a likely factor for this growth, given that Google’s change didn’t happen until March 22nd. It looks more like the increasing number of Chinese internet users is responsible. The share of Chinese citizens regularly accessing the internet was less than 30% in 2009. Internet penetration is increasing a lot faster in China than in the US, where penetration is now above 75%.

Employees at Razorfish’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai report that Google users are loyal, citing the accuracy and relevance Google is trusted to provide. Also, Google is necessary for searching for English-language pages in China.  Baidu results are only available in Chinese. Google will have a significant market in China until Baidu makes a big strategy shift.

Baidu’s strategy is to increase query share by concentrating on new users, rather than stealing from Google. Baidu also hopes to capture more of the mobile search share in China. This week, executives from Baidu explained their ambition to achieve the same query share from mobile as they have on PCs. With less than 1% of their sales teams dedicated to international business, it’s clear Baidu is not looking to the West.

Today Razorfish released the sixth annual Razorfish Outlook Report.

The report drives home the fact that digital is on center stage right now. Consumers and technology are responsible for the shift  — marketers need to keep up.

Search VP Josh Palau provides the outlook for search. Explaining the concept “Search Everywhere,”  he points out that as consumers expect more and more information at their fingertips, smart marketers will make sure search is integrated into all aspects of marketing, not a standalone tactic.

We encourage you to explore the full report and check out the graphics on flickr.

This year, the Razorfish Search team sent Shawn Cheng, Search Account Manager at Razorfish, to SXSW Interactive and he returned rejuvenated. We’re excited to share his thoughts on his first trip to the festival in Austin, TX and we particularly love his SXSW Approval Matrix (with apologies and thanks to New York Magazine).

Being this was my first SXSW and the conference has been going on since 1987, I had a lot of catching up to do. SXSW has been a music festival since 1987. In 1994, the Film and Interactive portions were born. Tech evangelists, serious start ups and hordes of VCs make pilgrimages to Austin to check out the newest technology.

The back of every SXSW’I program lists attendees by company. I noticed that most companies only had a handful of representatives, but under ‘R’ there was a fat block of 40 Razorfishers, demonstrating our commitment to innovation. We were born digital, we bleed digital and we’re looking for people with the same passion. Did I mention we’re hiring?

I was lucky enough to be a part of SXSW history, as the Interactive attendance of 12,000+ outnumbered the Music portion for the first time in the festival’s 23-year history. I created this SXSW Approval Matrix to capture the spirit of my experience at the festival.

SXSW Interactive Approval Matrix

If you attended, I want to hear from you! Did I miss any noteworthy events that deserve a place in one of the four quadrants? Do you think I misclassified something?

We’re so pleased to have been able to participate in a Q&A session with an experienced search engineer, we’re going to forgive the narcissism required to pack yet another all-day event almost entirely with content irrelevant to everyone not infatuated with Google. The agency-relations team saved this one by drafting Daniel Dulitz, one of its few engineers who works on both paid and natural search, to represent the company for a few precious minutes. There’s nothing like hearing how something works from someone who helped build it. It’s all the more satisfying given how much Razorfish has contributed, by driving the growth of search marketing within so many large organizations, to Google’s reinvention of media and advertising. Thanks, Google, for finally looping us back in.

Though we can’t disclose what we learned, we’re pleased to share that one sneaking suspicion we’ve had about Google was ruled out: Last year, when Google banned A/B testing of landing pages across multiple domains, it was NOT because Google forgot that the $14-billion-per-year SEM industry pretty much grew up on A/B testing.

We spent a good minute scratching the ol’ noggin over these two charts from SEMPO’s 2010 “State of Search Engine Marketing” report. They show that this year, 47% of surveyed businesses said they handle search in-house. Last year, no one said they handle search in house. A careful read reveals a note stating that “in house” wasn’t an option last year. Since none of the other answers are appropriate for respondents running search in-house, and we don’t have one of those handy “n=” captions tipping us off as to whether in-house search marketers skipped the question or entered a misleading answer last year, we can’t actually compare results year-over-year. So why even publish the 2009 chart?

Focusing on 2010 hardly clarifies the issue. We’re very curious about search provider choices, but this categorization is confusing. How would Razorfish Search’s clients respond? With 96 full-time search people and an average tenure over three years, we undoubtedly qualify as a “paid search specialist” and a “SEO specialist.” Though search is only one of many digital services Razorfish provides, some clients perceive us as a “search agency” because help with search is what they originally came to us for. “Digital Marketing Agency” might seem to be the best fit, unless our client considers that Razorfish is a leader in experience design, site creative and technology — projects that don’t fit neatly under the “Marketing Agency” header. At least we can rule out “PR agency”!

One question for our friend Sara Holoubek of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization: Did you outsource your search survey to a “survey expert” or a “search expert”?