International Search - Google and Search in Russia

I am blogging to you straight from the heart of Russia from a little town called Murmansk.

First, yes it is damn cold here, but not as bad as you would think. Second, yes it doesn’t get dark till about midnight in these parts. Moving on to international search…

I have been hanging out with a lot of locals and of course trying to explain to them SEO is a little tough, but most of the youngr crowd get it after a while. I am very happy to report that it seems most people prefer Yandex over the Google.

Other interesting facts for you doing international search in Russia to think about:

• Russians do not trust ordering things online - This is a side effect of the corruption that existed in the past that still lingers in Russia. People do not trust the post office and would never make large purchases online.
• Prices don’t make sense here - I do not know if it is because of rampant knock offs, but things just don’t make sense. Electronics are very expensive, while gold and diamonds are cheap. Maybe this might be an arbitrage opportunity.
• Russians love social status - Now that the country is free it seems many people love to flaunt their new found money, from nice cars, to nice waches, disposable income seems to be plentiful if it leads to an item that makes you look “richer” than your neighbor. Joke is the apartments are tiny as hell!
• Russians pirate like crazy - Ringtones and other digital goods are a waste of time here. From movies, mp3s, and games, people pirate everything and anything downloadable.

My conclusion is that Russia will be a great opportunity for international search because of people looking to spend money on “luxury” and “status” goods. However, I would not invest significantly until the people here learn to trust shipping. The US was very similar when online shopping was growing and look how quickly online shopping exploded once people learned to trust the net.