Japanese IDNs and use of "な" between words

[Asiaplay]

Hi All,

I guess someone has tested this - so I thought I would ask away.

I have an two word Japanese keyword IDN which grammatically correctly should use "な" between the two words - however I notice on google "searches per month" that the IDN, which does not use "な" gets more searches (i.e. people are lazy when typing it seems).

Question is:-
How do the search engines (yahoo, google etc.) treat the "な" character for Japanese (is "な" actually ignored by search engines, as it is just a grammatical character, i.e. a little like hyphen is ignored for ascii etc.).
Namely:- I am wondering if the IDN using "な", actually is really just as useful as the one NOT using "な", when used as a keyword IDN?

Any thoughts?
Anyone done tests on this?

Thanks in advance for your comments - cheers, Asiaplay

PS: some background on the use of "な" can be seen here - http://www.idnforums.com/forums/5385...AE%22-etc.html (so real question is, how exactly do search engines treat the use of "な"?)

[Asiaplay]

Bump - surprised no answer on this one!!!

With the 1000s of Japanese IDN some of you own, please tell me at least one of you has tested for this "な" question (or at least has an opinion)???

Any comments / ideas???

Thanks all - cheers, Asiaplay

[sbe18]

My Chinese trumps my Japanese...

but I own 携帯でテレビ.com
which is TV on mobile...more than Mobile TV....


携帯テレビ is the preferred term for sure....

but 携帯でテレビ is a frequent phrase......and will be a fairly good name for
a Mobile TV directory site soon enough......

Again...this from a guy...who commonly confused Kanji meanings unintentionally with Trad Chinese enough to be dangerous at restaurants....(grin)...

but I think the use of the silent hiragana will be fine for branding even if it is not great on search or SEO.....

If the name were developed....your SEO would be very powerful in its own right....

with the PPC collapse and the new Google Parking monopolization play..(US only for now...global in 9 months probably...)

that is my take, that all hiragana characters should be fine if common usage...

I think slang Japanese words from English may end up having lots of variants in spelling .....
my take...

With my portfolio of 300+ Japan domains...I do not have a 2 word domain with that character in it...

Looking forward to native speaker comments, for an untapped expression area for me to look at...

thanks..




Steve ....

[Asiaplay]

Thanks Steve... appreciate comments (can relate to the mix ups, my Japanese level is non-existent also really - lol).

Yeah - my gut feeling is google sees this as a different keyword (so effects SEO... as google does shows how many searches were done with and without), but yahoo might be more relaxed (or sensible one could say) and see them as the same for SEO (but I have not tested my gut feeling and can not really access yahoo search data).

Anyone else who has an opinion, please do comment as well !!!

Thanks again and cheers, Asiaplay

[Domainace]

Hi, a little late, but the "na" is often dropped following an adjective in common speech. It also looks cleaner. I would imagine Google ignores it either way, but no way of knowing.

[jose]

Originally Posted by Domainace

Hi, a little late, but the "na" is often dropped following an adjective in common speech. It also looks cleaner. I would imagine Google ignores it either way, but no way of knowing.

Welcome to the forum Domainace. I am already displaying an alert on idn.bz about Japanese IDNs with if い,・ ,の or 的.

Should I add な?

[websjapan]

there are two types of adjectives, one takes な and the other takes い as a modifer when modifiing a noun.

to the best of my knowledge "な" is used as a modifier for adjectives (while "の" is used for nouns) when describing something,

for example, きれいなねこ a beautiful cat.

in english we dont use that for adjectives, only the ' for nouns = "john's beautiful cat" (ジョンズのきれいなねこ）

in terms of search i doubt people would often search using な just as most people probably wouldnt use 's correctly when searching,

in terms of search algo i would imagine that google would treat it the same as 's

but thats just opinion, not tested.


hope that helps.

[jose]

Thanks websjapan. Will be added to idn.bz!

[Domainace]

Originally Posted by jose

Welcome to the forum Domainace. I am already displaying an alert on idn.bz about Japanese IDNs with if い,・ ,の or 的.

Should I add な?

Thanks for the welcome.
Don't know what the alert is for, sorry. But I would guess it depends on how Yahoo and Google treat it. Sounds like it fits with that group, though. In English, would you rather have buyacar.com or buycar.com? I would take either!

[jose]

Originally Posted by Domainace

Thanks for the welcome.
Don't know what the alert is for, sorry. But I would guess it depends on how Yahoo and Google treat it. Sounds like it fits with that group, though. In English, would you rather have buyacar.com or buycar.com? I would take either!

I certailnly would like to be informed that buyacar.com is Buy "a" Car and not Buy Car as automatic translations sometimes do. That's all. buythecar buysomecars buythiscar buyanycar buyingacar buycars buy-car are all good, but nothing beats buycar!

[Domainace]

Well, again, it depends on the context.
人気 (popular) normally takes a な。However, run a search on Yahoo and you'll see tons of listings that don't use it. Other words might sound funny without it.

Why not just run two searches, one with the な, and one without? That alone should give you a pretty good idea.
"人気ブログ"　106 million
"人気なブログ"　14,000!

I could have sworn that 人気 normally takes な.
I'll defer to a native speaker on this.....

[Asiaplay]

Yeah - I chose to go with what is actually searched for... i.e. the exact match theory...
Basically history is that when google search data came along it has differentiated for exact match (previously Overt used to treat these two as the same and therefore, their appeared to be no difference / disadvantage in using one over another).

In my case however google search data showed that the difference was huge - 48 searches per month for using the "な" and 30500 for not using it (even though in theory, to be correct the "な" should be used - it appears on the net that most people are lazy and often drop it).
So now I go with what is being searched for over what is grammatically correct in these cases.

However, I must admit that I still kept the grammatically correct version and have pointed that IDN to the mainly typed version without the "な" .

Thanks again for your comments - cheers, Asiaplay

PS: Sideline comment - I have since also found that typo's are not uncommon for Traditional Chinese - people sometimes mix simplified and traditional as the characters look similar when typed (was a little surprised to see this - but sometimes typos get all the searches!).