The right way to optimize for Baidu within the US
While Google, Bing and Yahoo control the West’s market share of search engine traffic, the alternative search engine Baidu is the king of search engines in China.
If you want to get your content out there on Baidu, you need a strong SEO strategy to guide you. What works on Google may not work on Baidu. So we created this guide to teach you how to earn a position in Baidu's search engine results for users in the United States.
What is Baidu?
Baidu is an internet and AI company that offers a range of services including search, cloud computing, music, maps, translation, video, and even self-driving cars. One Baidu service, Baidu Baike, is even considered a Wikipedia clone. The online encyclopedia contains over 16 million articles and 6.9 million editors.
However, the greatest asset that Baidu offers is its search engine. Baidu was originally launched in 2000 and was an early player in the Chinese search. In many ways, their early platform appeared to copy Google in approach and design, leading many to view them as a Chinese Google copycat rather than a real competitor.
Fast forward to the current day and Baidu holds 68.5 percent of the search engine market share in China and has around 1.54 billion searches per day. They bring in an average of $ 16.4 billion per year and have around 202 million active users every day.
Much of Baidu's success is due to its ability to index Chinese websites better and more effectively than any other search engine. The user interface is only available in Simplified Chinese, and search results prioritize Chinese language websites. Few non-Chinese language websites are ever included in the Baidu index or search engine results.
Baidu Vs. Google
Baidu has always been criticized as a Google copycat, and the similarities are certainly there.
When Google decided to stop displaying ads on the right side of the search engine results page, Baidu followed suit just a few months later.
Both search engines offer a similar user interface: a simple logo, search bar, and additional features.
In terms of product offerings, maps, music and video platforms, translation services, and travel sites are on both platforms.
Both Google and Baidu offer similar search capabilities, although Google's algorithm and indexing capabilities appear to be a bit more robust.
Baidu is also known for its early generous use of rich snippets, while Google has only ramped up its use of rich snippets in recent years. Many SEO experts have suggested that Google copied Baidu in this way.
The main differences between Baidu and Google lie in their individual SERPs. Here are some clear distinguishing features between the two platforms:
- While Google search results are available in 149 different languages, Baidu is only offered in simplified Chinese.
- Baidu links will open in a new window so that the Baidu home page is available at all times.
- Most Baidu search results contain thumbnails.
- Rich snippets on Baidu are often dynamic and interactive, which sets them apart from Google. They are often large, full of links, and even contain interactive JavaScript apps on the SERP.
- Baidu's rich snippets can occupy up to 70 percent of a page.
8 ways to optimize for Baidu
If you have a business with Chinese customers or want to introduce your products to a Chinese audience, optimizing your content for Baidu can help you open those doors.
Baidu has explained how their spiders crawl and index websites. Many websites are not included in Baidu by default because of their algorithm.
Due to strict internet censorship in China, also known as the Great Firewall of China, many of the following tactics are requirements rather than suggestions. ICPL licensing (see below) is one such example.
Here are some websites that Baidu will automatically filter out:
- Sites with duplicate content are filtered. If the content is available in more than one location on the internet, Baidu will not record it twice
- Baidu will not rate short pages of content
- JavaScript and AJAX content is not rated although users can see it
- Pages that load slowly can be treated as blank or short pages
- Web pages whose main body is not highlighted will not be crawled
Below are ways you can make sure your content is crawled and rated by Baidu.
1. Use a .CN domain
.Com websites are not preferred on the Baidu SERPs, and a .cn domain increases your chances of getting listed. However, it can be difficult to get a .cn domain outside of China.
To get a .cn domain, you must either be a Chinese citizen or own a Chinese company. In addition, all China-based websites must have a Bei & # 39; An license and commercial websites must have an ICP license.
Due to strong Chinese internet restrictions, obtaining these licenses can be time consuming and complicated. While this may seem off-putting, if you want your content to show up on the Baidu SERPs, it is well worth investing your time getting a .cn domain to ensure top rankings.
It's also important to note that the Great Firewall of China can increase the latency of websites loading from outside of China. For this reason, a .cn domain is preferred not only for Baidu but also for surfing in China in general.
2. Acquire a license (ICPL)
To legally host a website in China, you need an ICPL (Internet Content Publishing License).
ICPLs can be divided into two license types:
- Single licenses: can only be issued by providing an ID card issued by the Chinese state
- Business Licenses: require a Chinese business registration
While Baidu has never specifically stated that ICPLs are required, an ICPL number is required in order to have your site verified by Baidu Trust.
It can be difficult for overseas companies to obtain an ICPL license. The best thing to do as a Chinese company is to get yourself started before you get into any Chinese hosting.
3. Avoid using JavaScript
The Baidu search engine spider does not crawl JavaScript websites due to complications with links, navigation elements, and language changes.
This means that while your website will be displayed, it will not be crawled or rated. Make sure you provide an HTML alternative that the engine can read.
As an aside, Flash players are unusable on Baidu too.
4. Make sure your content is high quality
Baidu has always prioritized user experiences over ads. In 2013, they updated their algorithm with a "pomegranate" update penalizing websites that had user experience pitfalls with spam ads and poor quality content. Websites with high quality content are improved over websites with poor quality content.
Content Punished by Baidu's Pomegranate Update:
- Websites with a large number of low quality popup windows
- Ads that mimic the content of the page
- Pages with malicious ads or content
In order not to be penalized by the algorithm, avoid using pop-up advertisements on your website and use clear, high quality content on your website.
5. Prioritize the link building
Link building is an important factor if you want to rank on Baidu. In the past, Baidu seemed to prefer the quantity of links to quality, but with the pomegranate update, high quality backlinks are taking precedence.
When creating a link building plan for Baidu, focus on Chinese websites with high authority over those listed in other countries.
Also, make sure your copy has internal and external anchor text. For internal links, make sure that every page on your website points to your home page and that the home page only points to the pages in the main category. Subcategory pages should only be linked within your main category pages.
Unlike some other search engines, Baidu also counts URLs without hyperlinks, so including these URLs in your text can help your ranking.
6. Perfect your meta description and metadata
Unlike Google, Baidu continues to include meta descriptions and meta keywords in their ranking factors. This means you need unique and descriptive meta descriptions, metadata, and title tags that are optimized for keywords in Simplified Chinese.
A good meta description provides a clear and concise description of what a user can find on the page. It is important to write bespoke descriptions for each page of your website and use three to five meta keywords on each page to improve your Baidu ranking chances.
Baidu allows up to 80 characters in a title tag and 200 characters in a meta description. The number of characters for meta keywords is 100.
Alt tags and heading tags also play a role in your Baidu ranking. You should therefore also optimize this in Chinese.
7. Use pinyin in the url and simplified Chinese in the body
Pinyin is a Romanized version of Chinese that uses English characters to spell Chinese characters based on the Mandarin pronunciation.
Baidu prefers URLs written in pinyin, while the rest of the website uses Simplified Chinese.
When using pinyin, be careful with your choice of words. Baidu censors anti-government speech, adult content, gambling, and anything they deem culturally insensitive. While you might think avoiding this language is easy, it can be more difficult than you think. Some words seem innocent, but they are not. For example, "toad" and "rubber duck" are banned because of their political connotation.
Make sure you do a Chinese market research before getting listed on Baidu to make sure you are not breaking censorship laws.
8. Optimize for mobile devices
Baidu has 1.1 billion active mobile users monthly, which means most Baidu users will see your website on a mobile screen.
While Google's mobile search platform uses the same URL as the desktop version, Baidu's mobile search is done through m.baidu.com. Baidu will transcode websites that are not automatically suitable for cell phones so that they load faster. This means that your content is automatically hosted on Baidu's servers. Authorization from the owner is not required.
The downside to this automatic transcoding is that it can dramatically affect your website's UI / UI. This can lead to negative on-site experiences for your target audiences and many users who leave your website too early.
To counter this, make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices from the start. This will help you deliver high quality website experiences and keep your audience on your pages longer.
Conclusion
While Baidu may treat search engine rankings differently than Google or Bing, it is well worth investing your time in if you are looking to attract Chinese businesses.
Nevertheless, general search engine optimization techniques still apply here. So be sure to follow SEO best practices when creating Baidu content.
This, along with the special needs of the Baidu platform, could help you rank higher more often.
If the thought of SEO sounds daunting even in English, let our agency know and we can help you.
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