Google V/S Baidu: Key differences
Read an article today regarding the difference between SEO in the west and for Baidu, in China.
Now, I do agree that there are some differences to be aware of, my problem is that the 10 points mentioned in the article could equally apply to both or most search engine spiders.
So, for the sake of clarification, here is an extract from an article by Ganbat Dashdeleg one of China's more respected and popular SEO people, both in Google and Baidu.
By Baidu SEO Owner: Ganbat
The following article and tools are provided by Ganbat, owner of Baidu SEO, a professional SEO and SEM company that specialises in Baidu. We hope they inspire you to take a look at optimising your own site to improve your marketing ROI in China.
Posted on September 5, 2014 by Ganbat Dashdeleg
Almost every single website and traffic popularity data would say that Google is the most visited website in most of North America and Europe. A narrow look shows that Google is an overall global search engine winner.However, if you think the same is true in China, then you would be most definitely wrong. In China, Baidu is the top site and So.com is the coming hot, new kid on the block.
Google started pulling out of China in 2010, Since then Google has continued to move away from China, and Chinese are doing fine job helping them.
In other words, if you are in China and would like to search something on Google or access your Gmail or would like to use any other Google-powered service, it would be major challenge with speed limitation and accessibility issues. It is almost safe to say without VPN, you would not succeed.
So if you are business owner, who would like to enter the Chinese market by employing SEO and Inbound marketing, you most definitely need to optimize to follow Baidu’s search engine guidelines and SEO best practices, in other words start optimizing your site for Baidu today.
Some even say Baidu is a “commercial search” whereas Google is a "true search" search, I find myself sometimes agreeing on this point a lot depending on the SERP result I see time to time on the Baidu.
In China brands and marketers should really have their websites optimised for Baidu if they want to get any traction in China and as noted, this is not easy. In fact, despite the free tools available through this site, we strongly suggest that brands serious about success in China at least engage a professional to "fine tune" their Baidu SEO and after they have done the groundwork themselves.
Baidu Spider Emulator
There is great mystery surrounding Baidu Search Engine Optimization, or Baidu Seo. That’s because there is so much misleading information out there and way too many white hat, black hat and grey hat SEO optimization techniques from the experts and some of us are lost in the translation.
We all know that optimizing website is not a one-time job, it is rather a continuous process that we must commit and it is a game with ever changing rules. What helped websites achieve top position in last year is no longer a high importance or even may harm us if used without control.
To see how your site stacks up, you might then like to use the Baidu Site Optimiser check list, it's a free, on line quick and easy way to check your site.
However, do be aware that, as has already been pointed out, optimising your site, for any search engine, be it Google, Bing, Baidu or Aunty Jane is not a a once only job. It is ongoing, takes time and can end up being expensive, but then again, taking into account the loss of traffic and missed leads... well, you do the maths.
Summary of Baidu SERP Key Differences:
- Baidu SERP allows brands to “pay to display at top” and major example of this would be: Baidu BrandZone, very expensive too.
- Paid listings sometimes can hijack entire SERP result, with almost little to no organic listing for some high profitable keywords.
- Chinese language contents rank highly regardless of .com or .cn domain name i guess it is duh moment, as obviously Baidu clearly focuses on China.
Baidu vs Google
| On-Page SEO | High | High |
| Website content quantity | Medium | High |
| Inbound link quantity | Medium | Less |
| Inbound link quality | High | High |
| Links from Chinese sites | Medium | High |
| Site-speed | Medium | Medium |
| Social Integration | High | High |
| Baidu Verification | Medium | Less |
Common myths (misunderstandings) about Baidu rankings
1.You need .CN domain to rank wellNot true, they do favor .CN domain however ranking entirely depends on your content and marketing.
2.Baidu always ranks its products higher
Not true again, expect Baidu Zhidao (it is like Wikipedia in Google) ranks well almost every time, which is a good opportunity for us to get links from it, though!
3.Pay to get higher organic ranking
No necessarily true, expect in some cases, shady links and some black hat techniques are helping some unworthy pages rank higher that usual. But i don’t think that is because they have paid Baidu’s own team to tweak their SERP result just for them.
Few simple Baidu SEO Tips
- Test if the hosting company’s’ IP addresses are blocked or not
- Website speed matters, if possible host your web near China.
- HTML coding; use use either UTF-8 or GB2312
- Write your Title tags & description in Chinese
- Use Chinese social share plugins and services
Only major downer is the time it takes your rankings & traffic to increase compared to Google is twice as long, but that doesn’t mean your hard work is not paying off. Don’t give up!
In the meantime if you are willing to spend some, you could always give Baidu Ads [SEM] a try.
And yes, we also provide a Baidu SEM service~!
For a more detailed look at BAIDU SEO, visit our site
