Smart 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 results. Baidu publishes an SEO guide for them, and the search rules that govern websites apply to them too.

Why they exist in a search context

A mini program can be surfaced directly from a query, letting a user act — book, buy, look up — without leaving the Baidu app. For businesses whose value is a transaction rather than an article, that is a materially different proposition from a landing page.

The rules that carry across

Baidu’s algorithm standards name mini programs alongside sites throughout:

• Hurricane — scraped content, cross-field publishing and networks of near-identical programs reusing one template are all named offences.
• Jinfeng — abusive aggregation pages, including inside mini programs.
• Bingtong 5.0 — the landing-page experience standard applies, with the mini-program design specification alongside it for layout, font size and spacing.

A mini program is not a way around the quality rules; it is another surface on which they apply.

What is specific to them

• URL mapping — the relationship between web pages and mini-program pages must be submitted so Baidu can substitute one for the other, and mapping failures are a documented support topic.
• Sitemap submission exists for mini programs and has its own failure modes.
• Service completeness — the landing-page standard’s requirements for search, customer service, payment, cart, order lookup and returns apply directly to transactional mini programs.

Whether to build one

It is a substantial commitment: a separate implementation, a separate submission and mapping regime, and the same quality obligations as the site. It earns its place for transactional services with real Chinese usage, and it is an expensive way to publish content that a good mobile site would carry equally well.