How Baidu Search works
Baidu’s own framing of site building is refreshingly plain: the search engine is just an ordinary visitor to the site.…
Getting startedBaidu Search Resource Platform
The Baidu Search Resource Platform (百度搜索资源平台) is the equivalent of Search Console, and everything Baidu offers a site owner runs…
Getting startedAdding and verifying a site
Verification proves control of the site before Baidu shows any of its data. Three methods, and the choice determines how…
Getting startedBaidu and Google: what actually differs
Roughly seventy percent of technical search work transfers between Google and Baidu. The remaining thirty percent is where sites entering…
Indexing and submissionOrdinary collection: the standard submission route
Ordinary collection (普通收录) is Baidu’s standard submission route, and it offers four methods with materially different characteristics. Choosing the right…
Indexing and submissionFast collection and daily quotas
Fast collection (快速收录) is the priority submission channel, with a daily quota tied to the site’s standing rather than available…
Indexing and submissionSitemap submission to Baidu
A sitemap is the standing declaration of what a site contains, and in Baidu it is the appropriate channel for…
Indexing and submissionAPI push and automated submission
API push (主动推送) is the fastest way to tell Baidu about a new page, and Baidu recommends it explicitly: push…
robots.txt and Baiduspider
Baiduspider checks robots.txt in the root of the domain before crawling. The syntax follows the standard protocol; the details below…
Indexing and submissionDead links: the official standard
Baidu recognises three kinds of dead link, and asks that all three be submitted through the dead-link tool. Doing so…
Indexing and submissionCrawl frequency and crawl diagnosis
Crawl frequency (抓取频次) is how often Baiduspider visits, and the platform exposes it alongside crawl diagnosis and a crawl exceptions…
Mobile-first is not a strategy in China, it is the baseline
In Baidu, mobile is not a segment of the traffic to be optimised for after desktop — it is the…
Mobile and page experienceThe Mobile Friendly standard
Baidu’s mobile-friendly requirements are published as concrete criteria rather than a general principle, and they are enforced through the landing-page…
Mobile and page experienceMobile adaptation and URL pairing
Where a site keeps separate PC and mobile versions, Baidu needs to know which mobile URL corresponds to which PC…
Landing Page Experience White Paper
The Mobile Search Landing Page Experience White Paper is the most specific document Baidu publishes. It is a specification with…
Mobile and page experienceBaidu Mobile Search Optimization Guide
Baidu’s Mobile Search Optimization Guide and the companion Mobile Site Building White Paper cover the ground before the landing-page standard…
Content quality rulesBaidu Quality Content Guide
Baidu’s Web Page Quality White Paper scores a page on three dimensions, and a failure in any one damages the…
Content quality rulesOriginality and how Baidu judges it
Baidu operates an original content protection programme with published operating rules, aimed at ensuring the producer of a piece rather…
What Baidu treats as low quality
The bottom two grades in Baidu’s quality framework — “poor” and “no quality at all” — describe specific, recognisable pages.…
Content quality rulesMedical and health content governance
Medical and health content is governed more strictly than any other category in Baidu Search, through a combination of quality…
Content quality rulesCopyright, pirated text and republishing
Baidu’s quality framework treats pirated and copyright-infringing content explicitly, and it appears in the grading examples rather than as a…
Content quality rulesB2B pages and contact-detail spam
B2B and supply-directory pages are governed by the Xiyu algorithm, and the offences it names are the ordinary working habits…
AlgorithmsHow Baidu’s named algorithms work
Baidu is unusual among search engines in naming its algorithms, publishing what each one targets, and maintaining a single consolidated…
AlgorithmsQingfeng: title spam and download traps
Qingfeng (清风) began as an algorithm against title deception and, from version 2.0, targets deceptive downloads. Baidu’s definition of a…
AlgorithmsFenghuo: hijacking and back-button abuse
Fenghuo (烽火) targets hijacking of the user’s journey — specifically, interference with the back button and unexpected redirection on mobile.…
Lantian: sold directories and news-source trading
Lantian (蓝天) targets a specific commercial abuse: news portals and authoritative sites selling their directories or their news-source status to…
AlgorithmsJinglei: click manipulation
Jinglei (惊雷) targets click manipulation — artificially inflating click-through and behavioural signals to lift ranking. It sits in Baidu’s “fair…
AlgorithmsXiyu: B2B low-quality content
Xiyu (细雨) governs B2B and supply-and-demand directory sites. It targets two things: misleading titles, and contact details smuggled into content.…
AlgorithmsJinfeng: aggregation page spam
Jinfeng (劲风), launched February 2020, targets abusive aggregation pages. Baidu defines an aggregation page precisely: a page with no main…
AlgorithmsJuifeng: scraped and collected content
Hurricane (飓风) is Baidu’s algorithm against scraped and collected content. Version 2.0 defines four distinct offences, and the distinctions matter…
AlgorithmsBingtong: intrusive mobile advertising
Bingtong (冰桶) is Baidu’s mobile landing-page experience algorithm, and it is the one with the most published detail behind it:…
AlgorithmsLvluo: bought links and link trading
Lvluo (绿萝) is Baidu’s link-trading algorithm, launched in 2013 and upgraded to 2.0 the same year. It targets bought and…
AlgorithmsShiliu and Tianwang: ad-heavy pages and data security
Two older algorithms that established principles Baidu still enforces through their successors. Shiliu (石榴) — the low-quality page algorithm Launched…
Search appearanceStructured data in Baidu Search
Baidu supports structured data submission to enrich how results appear, through platform tools and — for common content management systems…
Site sublinks
Site sublinks (站点子链) are Baidu’s equivalent of sitelinks — additional links under a result — with one large difference: they…
Search appearanceSite attributes, name and logo
Site attributes cover the identity Baidu shows alongside a result: the site name and logo. Both are submitted through the…
Search appearanceSmart mini programs in search
Baidu Smart Mini Programs (智能小程序) are applications that run inside the Baidu app and appear in search results as first-class…
Diagnostics and recoveryInvestigating a traffic drop
A traffic drop has a small number of possible causes and a defined order for eliminating them. Working that order…
Diagnostics and recoveryMobile traffic anomaly investigation
Mobile traffic can fall while desktop holds steady, and the causes are specific enough to deserve their own procedure —…
Diagnostics and recoveryThe index volume tool
Index volume (索引量) is the count of pages Baidu holds for a site, reported in the Search Resource Platform. Baidu’s…
Site revision and URL changes
Changing URLs or domains in Baidu requires a formal declaration through the site revision tool, not merely redirects. The declaration…
Hacked sites and security recovery
Compromised sites are treated by Baidu as a security matter with immediate consequences, and the common forms — hijacking, injected…