How Baidu Search works
Baidu holds the majority of search in mainland China, and its ranking logic was shaped by a market Google never…
Getting startedBaidu Search Resource Platform
Baidu Search Resource Platform (ziyuan.baidu.com) is Baidu’s equivalent of Search Console: verification, submission tools, index reporting, crawl diagnostics and the…
Getting startedAdding and verifying a site
Verification proves control of the domain and unlocks the reporting and submission tools. The methods File verification — upload a…
Getting startedBaidu and Google: what actually differs
The differences that actually change what you do, rather than the ones that make interesting slides. Where the work diverges…
Indexing and submissionOrdinary collection: the standard submission route
Ordinary collection is the standard submission channel: you send URLs and Baidu adds them to the crawl queue without any…
Indexing and submissionFast collection and daily quotas
Fast collection is the priority channel: a limited daily quota of URLs that Baidu processes far more quickly than ordinary…
Indexing and submissionSitemap submission to Baidu
Baidu accepts XML sitemaps and uses them to understand site structure and freshness, though access to sitemap submission has at…
Indexing and submissionAPI push and automated submission
The push API submits URLs programmatically, which is the only sane approach for a site that publishes continuously. Implementation Submit…
robots.txt and Baiduspider
Baiduspider reads robots.txt, and Baidu’s handling has its own quirks alongside the familiar directives. What to know Baiduspider has multiple…
Indexing and submissionDead links: the official standard
Baidu publishes a formal standard for dead links and provides a submission tool to have them removed from the index.…
Indexing and submissionCrawl frequency and crawl diagnosis
Crawl frequency reporting shows how often Baiduspider visits and what it encountered; crawl diagnosis lets you fetch a URL as…
Mobile-first is not a strategy in China, it is the baseline
Chinese search is overwhelmingly mobile, and much of it happens inside the Baidu app rather than a browser. Desktop-first thinking…
Mobile and page experienceThe Mobile Friendly standard
Baidu publishes an explicit Mobile Friendly standard defining what a mobile page must do to be treated as mobile-optimised. The…
Mobile and page experienceMobile adaptation and URL pairing
Where a site serves separate desktop and mobile URLs, Baidu needs the pairing declared through its mobile adaptation tool. The…
Landing Page Experience White Paper
Baidu’s Landing Page Experience White Paper is the most concrete experience specification any major engine publishes: it defines layout, advertising…
Mobile and page experienceBaidu Mobile Search Optimization Guide
Baidu’s Mobile Search Optimization Guide is the older but still-referenced summary of mobile requirements: adaptation, speed, layout and common faults.…
Content quality rulesBaidu Quality Content Guide
Baidu’s Quality Content Guide describes what it considers good content: complete, credible, well-presented and produced by someone with a reason…
Content quality rulesOriginality and how Baidu judges it
Baidu has invested heavily in originality detection, partly because content scraping is endemic in the Chinese web. How it is…
What Baidu treats as low quality
Baidu names the characteristics it treats as low quality, and the list is more specific than most engines publish. The…
Content quality rulesMedical and health content governance
Baidu applies stricter rules to medical and health content, following well-publicised failures in that category. What is required Qualification and…
Content quality rulesCopyright, pirated text and republishing
Baidu runs sustained campaigns against pirated content, particularly online fiction, and against sites republishing others’ material without rights. What is…
Content quality rulesB2B pages and contact-detail spam
Baidu targets a pattern specific to Chinese B2B directories: thin product pages padded with contact details and location keywords, published…
AlgorithmsHow Baidu’s named algorithms work
Baidu enforces its rules through named, publicly announced algorithms. Each targets a specific manipulative pattern and is usually announced before…
AlgorithmsQingfeng: title spam and download traps
Qingfeng targets deceptive titles and download traps: pages whose title promises something the content does not deliver, and download pages…
AlgorithmsFenghuo: hijacking and back-button abuse
Fenghuo targets hijacking: sending users somewhere they did not choose, including breaking the browser back button so they cannot leave.…
Lantian: sold directories and news-source trading
Lantian targets the sale of directories and subdomains on trusted sites — typically news portals and universities renting space to…
AlgorithmsJinglei: click manipulation
Jinglei targets artificial click behaviour: services that simulate users searching for a term and clicking a result to inflate its…
AlgorithmsXiyu: B2B low-quality content
Xiyu targets low-quality B2B content: pages that exist to capture queries with contact details rather than to inform, and titles…
AlgorithmsJinfeng: aggregation page spam
Jinfeng targets aggregation pages: automatically assembled listings of links or search results that add nothing beyond the pages they point…
AlgorithmsJuifeng: scraped and collected content
Juifeng targets content collection: sites built by scraping other sites’ material, whether verbatim or lightly rewritten. What it detects Large…
AlgorithmsBingtong: intrusive mobile advertising
Bingtong targets mobile pages whose advertising or interstitials obstruct the content — the algorithm behind much of the Landing Page…
AlgorithmsLvluo: bought links and link trading
Lvluo targets link buying and selling: paid links, link networks and sites operating as link vendors. What it detects Sites…
AlgorithmsShiliu and Tianwang: ad-heavy pages and data security
Two older algorithms that remain in force. Shiliu targets pages dominated by advertising and pop-ups; Tianwang targets sites leaking user…
Search appearanceStructured data in Baidu Search
Baidu supports structured data for richer results, though its ecosystem is separate from Schema.org and is tied to its own…
Site sublinks
Site sublinks are the internal links shown under a site’s result, generated by Baidu but adjustable through the platform. What…
Search appearanceSite attributes, name and logo
Site attributes — the site name, logo and category shown in results — are configured in the platform and affect…
Search appearanceSmart mini programs in search
Baidu smart mini programs are applications running inside the Baidu app, and their content can be indexed and surfaced in…
Diagnostics and recoveryInvestigating a traffic drop
Baidu publishes a structured procedure for investigating traffic drops, which is more useful than the general advice most engines offer.…
Diagnostics and recoveryMobile traffic anomaly investigation
Baidu documents mobile traffic investigation separately, because mobile has failure modes desktop does not. Mobile-specific causes Broken or incomplete mobile…
Diagnostics and recoveryThe index volume tool
The index volume tool reports how many pages Baidu currently holds, over time. How to read it Trend matters more…
Site revision and URL changes
The site revision tool tells Baidu about URL structure changes so accumulated signals transfer to the new addresses. The process…
Hacked sites and security recovery
Compromised sites are a recurring enforcement target, and Baidu warns site owners around periods when attacks spike. What attackers do…