A while back I stumbled upon this Chinese site called “Gccgle.” The name can only be a lame rip on Google’s name, and yet the site posts a copyright notice inviting users to take note that the site’s name shouldn’t be confused with Google’s because “Gccgle” has two Cs instead of Os. Please.
Gccgle’s Chinese name is ¿á¹·Íø. I guess it would translate as something like “cool dog network.” ¿á¹· (k¨´g¨¯u) sounds similar to “Google” to Chinese ears. (But remember, it’s not the same!)
The Gccgle people claim to be Pagerank experts. One of the services offered is a boost in Pagerank. I have my doubts about a company with such a shameless name, but they actually did produce a program (Chinese interface) that’s kind of cool, when it isn’t freezing up. The software tells you where in Google’s rankings your site turns up for a certain search. For example, I could put in “sinosplice.com” as the site, and then “supermodel emo band” and discover that my site ranks #48 for this search without actually having to scroll through the search results on Google’s page. The advanced search lets you do multiple searches for a site at once. Could be useful. The program froze up after a couple of searches every time I used it, though.
Oh, and if there was any doubt as to the company’s lack of integrity regarding copyright issues, it’s partners with a site called google8.net. Google8.net’s logo is Google’s with an 8 added on the end. Pathetic.
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I¡¯ve always heard it as gougou ¨C dogdog. Cool dog is cooler though.
As for the Google program thing, try cleverstat.com/google-monitor-query.htm ¨C I¡¯ve been using it for over a year and its never crashed once. Sounds similar to the one you¡¯ve been trying. English interface too,
Roddy,
The folks at Gccgle (not Google) would like to remind you that their name is ¿á¹·, not to be confused with ¹·¹· or whatever similar-sounding copyrighted name your overactive imagination might concoct.
Anyway, thanks for the link. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gccgle ripped off that software.
i am not surprised. many chinese brands try to resemble big names (either foreign or local) in order to take advantage of market leaders’ brand awareness. i remember there were casual apparel brands called ASDIDA and ADADIS in 1990s
china’s legal system is there to fight against this kind of intellectual property violation, the bottleneck, i think, is investigation, not many firms can afford a legal dept such as the one MS owns, and i guess people like John who has found this Gccgle thing will very probably NOT report to Google.
btw, John, may I use this case in my blog and community? thanks in advance
bingfeng,
Do you really think Google is unaware of this website? Somehow I doubt it.
Feel free to blog about this. In any case, I have no right to stop you.
I think one interesting thing about this case is that the English name is unpronounceable and depends entirely on its visual similarity.
Sorry, I thought you meant Google’s name was kugou. I’ll try reading before commenting next time.
Its hard to tell sometimes if a rip-off is an attempt at a copy with a misspelling, or a poor attempt at changing the name to look different. See: Palyboy clothing . . .
I have seen stuff in China with the adidas logo and ‘abcdef’ underneath!
john, ur “intellectual property” was violated
here is it: http://www.danwei.org/archives/001091.html
bingfeng,
Thanks for the heads up, but in this case, the “violation” was invited.