[Study] Does Baidu SERP domination make SEO impossible in China?

It’s common knowledge that the Google search results page often includes ads, YouTube videos, and Wikipedia rankings for many information queries (which often feed the knowledge graph). But what does it look like on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine?

Are some elements simply displayed more frequently, reducing the space that normal website owners could organically occupy in the search engine results pages (SERPs), like on Google? Let’s take a look…

(And take a look at our guide to Baidu services if you want to find out more).

Study introduction

The following text shows you which Baidu products are displayed on the search results pages for different industry keywords.

To get an intuitive impression, please take a look at the snapshot of the keyword “搬家公司” (moving company) displayed on Baidu’s SERP from the desktop page:

Figure 1: SERP for”搬家公司“ showing how Baidu seems to favor their own services, Baidu B2B in the top, followed by 58.com, then a Baidu product again: Baidu Tieba)

In the screenshot above, there are three positions. At the bottom of each position (block), the website is marked (1: “b2b.baidu.com”; 2: “58同城” (58.com); 3: “tieba.baidu.com”). 

Baidu’s Baidu Ai Caigou (Baidu B2B) and Baidu Tieba products are ranked first and third, respectively. The second position is not a Baidu product, but a popular platform “58同城” (58 local cities). 

The problem with searching keywords directly in Baidu is that the results are displayed based on your preferences (Baidu’s personalized search results), which may not be objective enough to present the same Baidu products that other users might see. 

Also, there is limited space for a screenshot to show Baidu’s products. So for the sake of objectivity and space, let’s take a look at the following snapshot from Dragon Metrics, a third-party platform for monitoring website rankings around the world. 

This snapshot objectively shows more results and rankings when searching for the keyword “搬家公司” (moving company):

Figure 2: Screenshot of Dragon Metrics showing Baidu search results for “搬家公司”, Moving Company

Let us explain the screenshot: On the top left, in the second box we selected the search engine “Baidu”; the fourth small box is the searched keyword: “搬家公司” (moving company). 

The table below shows the placement of the keyword with its position in SERP, types and the highest ranking URL with its title. All logos in the Type column are Baidu products. 

The first is Baidu Ai Caigou; the fifth is Baidu Video; the ninth is Baidu Tieba; the fourteenth is Baidu Zhaopin; the fifteenth is Baidu Ai Qicha (Baidu Enterprises Supervision, an enterprise credit checking product). The sixteenth is Baidu Ditu.

Here’s another example:

Figure 3: Screenshot of Dragon Metrics showing Baidu search results for “国际学校”, International School

This snapshot shows the Baidu search results for the keyword “国际学校” (international school). The first two rows of the table without marked positions are advertisements. The following first place is Baidu Ditu; the ninth is Baidu Tieba; the tenth is Zhihu (知乎, similar to Quora, not a Baidu product, a Q&A platform often rated by Baidu); the eleventh is Bai Jiahao.

Here’s another example:

Figure 4: Screenshot of Dragon Metrics showing Baidu search results for “男装”, International School

The snapshot above is again from the tool Dragon Metrics. The fourth field above contains the keyword “男装” (menswear). The two rows of the table without highlighted items are advertisements. The following fifth position is Baidu Baike; the ninth is Baidu Hanyu; the tenth is Baidu Tieba; the twelfth and fourteenth are Bai Jiahao;

From the above snapshots and Table 2 in the following text, we can intuitively see that Baidu products always appear in the top 3, top 10 and top 30 SERPs. 

It can be observed that Baidu has distributed more traffic to its products in recent years (see also 2020 Baidu Ranking Factors Correlation Study). SEOs can contribute content relevant to websites and Baidu services to increase the chances of their brands being listed as results – via Baidu services.

The following table shows the Chinese names in pinyin and English for Baidu products.

Table 1: Baidu Products / Services Names

In Baidu’s SERPs, new products are constantly being tested and developed. To improve the weight of the index, SEOs can contribute relevant content for websites to be optimized for these Baidu products. In addition, SEOs should take into account that different Baidu products can fit different industries.

Baidu search results – an analysis

We conducted a comprehensive analysis across different industries to find out which Baidu products appear more frequently in general, and which of them dominate different industries.

To achieve this, we created comprehensive keyword sets for the different industries (below we show a brief sample of keywords we selected) and checked them with Dragon Metrics (to get non-personalized rankings) to learn more about the different SERP setups.

The scrollable table below shows that Baidu products are always in the top 30 on Baidu SERPs after searching keywords in different industries:

Table 2: Rankings of Baidu products on the search pages based on different industry

Some of the keywords we searched for to create the table above included:

Manufacturing:

• 编码员 (coder)

• 如何在打码机中装纸 (how to load paper in coder)

• 喷墨打印机 (inkjet printer)

• 喷码机供应商 ( inkjet printer suppliers)

• 全自动打码机 (fully automatic coder)

Local services:

• 保姆 (Nanny) 

• 个人找住家保姆( looking for a home nanny) 

• 家政 (housekeeping)

• 搬家公司 (moving company)

Technology:

• 仓储管理系统 (Warehouse management system) 

• 仓储管理系统软件哪个好 (Which warehouse management system software is good)

• CRM软件 (CRM software)

• 信号发生器 (signal generator)

• 无线通信 (wireless communication)

Daily goods:

• 牙膏  (Toothpaste) 

• 针织衫  (Knitwear) 

• 男装 (Men’s Clothing)

• 什么牙膏美白牙齿效果好 ( what tooth paste whiten teeth)

• 钢琴 (piano)

Medical services:

• 颈椎病(Cervical spondylosis) / /

• 颈椎病怎样治疗比较好 (how to treat cervical spondylosis is better) 

• 胆结石  (gallstones)

• 腰疼 (waist ache)

• 女性腰痛的原因有哪些 (why women feeling waist ache)

The following text explains some of the most common Baidu products shown in our analysis, and the industries that match these products. 

We hope this helps you better understand these Baidu products and whether they are important for your industry.

1. Must-have Baidu services for all industries: Baidu Baike (Baidu Encyclopedia) / Baidu Shipin (Baidu Video) / Baidu Tieba (Baidu Forum) / Bai Jiahao (another Baidu Forum)

Baidu Baike (the Chinese equivalent of Wikipedia), with texts and videos, is usually displayed at the top of the SERPs. Texts and videos in Baidu Shipin/Baidu Tieba and Baijiahao are also displayed in almost every industry. 

As you can see in Table 2, the SERP for almost every search term in every industry includes these products. Each product occupies more than one position, and the ranks are very high.

2. Shopping results and business information: Baidu Ai Caigou (Baidu B2B Purchase)

Baidu Ai Caigou, a B2B platform owned by Baidu, presents relevant products from paid advertisers. Each result includes product name, price, merchant information, specific reviews and offers. 

Therefore, merchants can seamlessly connect with Baidu Search through Baidu B2B and meet users’ requirements for obtaining information, acquiring buyers, and getting more business opportunities and orders.

From Table 2 above, we can see that Baidu B2B is widely used in manufacturing, local services, technology and medicine. In other words, Baidu B2B occupies multiple positions and therefore appears in the first results.

3. Frequently Asked Questions: Baidu Zhidao (Baidu Knowledge) and Baidu Zhuanjia Wenda (Baidu Expert Q&A)

Baidu Knowledge and Baidu Expert Q&A display relevant questions that the searcher types and extract relevant answers from web pages. After clicking “Show Answers”, more relevant questions are loaded.

Baidu Knowledge will appear in SERPs of almost all industries as it provides users with different answers from different users. It can also intelligently retrieve and recommend solutions using AI technology, so almost any question will be answered quickly and effectively.

Most of the replicators in Baidu Expert Q&A are recognized experts with outstanding achievements in various fields, especially experts in the medical industry. 

Each of them has a unique “Know” ID, which is more meaningful and trustworthy for most Internet users when answering questions. Baidu Expert Q&A appears more in the medical industry.

Figure 5: Snippet from Baidu Expert Q&A for the keyword “什么牙膏美白牙齿效果好“ (toothpaste good for whitening teeth). There are 4 positions in this snapshot. The second is an advertisement. Others are experts’ answers. At the bottom of each position is “Know ID”

4. Location Search—Baidu Ditu (Baidu Maps)

Local SERPs are displayed whenever your search intent is implicitly related to location. 

For example, if you type in “moving company,” “international school,” or “men’s clothing,” Baidu will show areas near you that match your search query and tell you exactly where to find them on the map. Baidu Maps often appear on SERPs in education, local services, and everyday goods.

Figure 6: Baidu Ditu Snippet for “搬家公司” – moving company. The result marks local (Guangzhou) moving companies on the map

5. Knowledge and experience sharing: Baidu Wenku (Baidu Library) / Baidu Jingyan (Baidu Experience)

In Baidu Wenku, you can share documents with millions of Internet users and read other users’ full-text copies. At the same time, you can download documents with the credit points you get from sharing documents.

In Baidu Experience, you can find many best practices for solving real-world problems, and you can also contribute your own experiences to benefit more people.

Figure 7: Screenshot from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “颈椎病怎样治疗比较好” – how to treat cervical spondylosis is better, showing how the Baidu SERP looks like

Baidu Wenku mainly appears in education/local service/technology and medical industry SERPs; Baidu experience primarily occurs in the SERPs of the consumer goods and medical industries. 

For example, after entering “how to treat cervical spondylosis is better”, Baidu library is on positions 24, 26 and 27; after entering “how to make coffee ”, Baidu experience is on position 25.

Figure 8: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “怎么冲咖啡” – how to make coffee

6. Additional links integration — Baidu Zhiliao Haoxue (Baidu Learning Lover)

Additional links (a type of external links) are links to other websites on SERPs or links to other pages within the same website. They have a stronger effect on regular organic search results than SERP features.

Figure 9: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “书法培训” – calligraphy training

Baidu Learning Lover is a vertical product in the education industry. It integrates networks of suitable courses and provides comprehensive education search information. For example, enter “书法培训” (calligraphy education). Baidu Learning Lover helps you quickly find the international schools in your city at position 1 on SERP.

Let’s say you are the staff of a school. In this case, Baidu Learning Lover can make your school shine in education enrollment channels, increase brand awareness, accurately drive traffic and attract students.

7. Applets and H5: Baidu Jiankang (Baidu Health) / Baidu Ningmeng Aimei (Baidu Lemon Beauty) / Baidu H5

To make search easier and more direct for users, Baidu SERP has improved the leap to applets and H5, so that users can directly use the applet for purchase/consultation/communication when searching for solutions.

For example, Baidu Health is a must-see applet in the SERPs of the medical industry. After typing “why headache”, you will see that Baidu Health appears in the 3rd position. If you want more information, click on it and jump to the Baidu Health applet. You can also click directly on the Baidu H5 page to consult an expert on that page.

Figure 10: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “为什么头痛” – why feeling headache

After entering “toothpaste to whiten teeth”, the Baidu Lemon Beauty applet is displayed on positions 6 and 9. Questions about “how to whiten teeth (positions 3 and 9)” and “whether you need to reshape your teeth (positions 1, 2 and 6)” can be solved with the applet.

Figure 11: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “什么牙膏美白牙齿效果好” – toothpastes good for whitening teeth

Figure 12: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “怎么美白牙齿” – how to whiten teeth

Figure 13: Snippet from Dragon Metrics for the keyword “是否需要牙齿整形” – whether you need to reshape your teeth

Many Baidu researchers have found that most people only click on the first searched page and rarely visit the second page of SERPs. Therefore, the goal of an SEO must be either to position your own website on the first page of Baidu’s SERPs or to capture one of the places by placing your brand within these Baidu services. 

Some call it “parasite SEO”, some don’t call it SEO anymore because it’s not about your own website. We tend to call anything “SEO for China” that helps to organically position one’s brand on Baidu SERPs – whether it’s one’s own website or not.

To ensure that the website is displayed on the first page if possible, SEOs can contribute content related to Baidu products. Before creating content, SEOs should assess which Baidu product fits the website’s industry. Can your website’s information appear on the first page of SERPs? The above text can give you some insights.  

Practical Baidu SEO checklist for winning organic listings on Baidu Products:

1. Check the search term in SERPs

2. Identify all Baidu properties in the ranking

3. Check if you can add additional valuable content for each page

4. Create Baidu encyclopedia entries for your products. On the pages of Baidu encyclopedia entries, add external links pointing to your website to increase the weight of the website

5. Use Baidu Zhidao for Q&A marketing. Brands can ask questions on Baidu Zhidao and provide relevant answers. The question contains long-tail words related to the brand’s product; the answer contains information such as the company’s website or an external link. Relevant Baidu Zhidao Q&A will be prioritized when users search for relevant keywords in Baidu. Q&A marketing increases brand awareness

6. On Baidu Maps, enter the company name and products in SEO rules. Baidu will show them first in the results when users search near companies on the map

7. Post content about your brands and products on Baidu Tieba. There are skills for posting external links in Tieba. If you master these skills, it will effectively optimize your brand’s search results and bring high traffic to the company website

8. Post articles with website URLs in the header or footer of the article on Baidu Wenku. Once Baidu picks up the article, it will become a stable and high-quality external link;

9. Include images in the Baidu Wenku article and add URLs to the image content. If the article is of high quality, it will also attract some users to browse the website

10. Include long-tail words in the title of Baidu Jingyan (Experience) to attract visitors

Closing thoughts – SEO for Baidu

Baidu assigns a lot of weight to its products. Some people say that SEO is almost impossible for Baidu because Baidu claims most of the rankings. 

But a smart organic search (SEO) marketer also sees this as an opportunity to promote its brand. Although it’s a Baidu-owned ranking, you can still try to make it your own by helping Baidu provide great content.

So with some SEO skills, you can publish brand-relevant content on Baidu-based products to drive traffic to your website/brand.

After in-depth research on Baidu products, search marketers can develop more advertising skills. It’s really fun to gain visitors and customers through Baidu Search. Let’s go – you can do it!