Fenghuo (烽火) targets hijacking of the user’s journey — specifically, interference with the back button and unexpected redirection on mobile.
What it covers
- Disabling or trapping the back button, so a user who presses back does not return to the search results.
- Redirecting the user to a destination they did not choose, on arrival from search or on interaction with the page.
- Privacy-related hijacking — the algorithm has been extended over successive versions to cover the collection and misuse of user data during these interruptions.
Why the back button is the specific target
On mobile, back is how a searcher leaves a page that did not answer their question and tries the next result. A page that captures it holds the visitor against their intent, and it corrupts the behavioural signal Baidu reads from that journey. It is simultaneously a user-experience offence and a manipulation of measurement, which is why it warrants a named algorithm.
The version most sites are caught by
Not deliberate trapping — scripts. History-manipulating interstitials, app-download prompts that push a state onto the history stack, consent overlays and ad frameworks that intercept navigation. The site owner never experiences it: they arrive by typing the address, on desktop, with a session already established.
How to check
- Open the site on a phone, arriving from a Baidu result, with no cookies.
- Press back. You should land on the results page, once, immediately.
- Repeat after interacting with the page — opening a menu, closing an overlay, scrolling past an ad — since history entries are usually pushed by those interactions.
The remedy
Audit every third-party script with the ability to navigate or manipulate history: advertising frameworks, app-install prompts, chat widgets, consent tools. Remove what interferes. There is no configuration that makes a captured back button acceptable.
Comment nous l'appliquons
Every case of this we have investigated was a third-party script rather than a decision — usually an app-download interstitial pushing history states. The test takes two minutes and nobody runs it, because owners never arrive at their own site the way a searcher does. We record the phone screen when reporting it, since the behaviour is impossible to argue with once seen.
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