As China’s largest search engine and a world AI and Web know-how chief, Baidu is a powerhouse of innovation. The ERNIE language mannequin, surpassing Google’s BERT in Chinese language language processing, positions Baidu on the reducing fringe of technological development.
In our complete Baidu web optimization Rating Components Correlation Examine*, we analyzed the SERPs for 10,000 Chinese language key phrases, delving into the highest 20 rankings to uncover the components influencing Baidu’s search engine algorithms.
Search Engine Insights
This examine is a goldmine for web optimization practitioners globally, not simply these focusing on the Chinese language market. Baidu’s distinctive method to go looking engine know-how provides invaluable insights, particularly in an period the place a deep understanding of algorithms and the way serps work is essential for web optimization success.
Just like how the web optimization group has extensively studied the leaked Yandex papers, understanding Baidu’s SERP building is equally vital.
Baidu Providers in Baidu SERPs
In understanding Baidu’s affect in web optimization, it’s vital to acknowledge its array of proprietary companies that usually dominate the search outcomes. For instance, companies like Baidu Maps are integral for native searches, much like the position of Google Maps in different areas.
A notable 34.9% of the highest 10 search outcomes are dominated by Baidu’s personal companies, marking a big improve from 24.7%, as reported in Searchmetrics’ Baidu Rating Components Examine in 2020**.
| 2020 | 2023 | |
| Proportion of Baidu’s personal leads to prime 10 | 24.70% | 34.91% |
| Proportion of Baidu’s personal leads to prime 20 | NA | 24.91% |
| Proportion of Baidu’s personal outcomes on place #1 | 39.00% | 60.13% |
This dominance extends to 60.13% of first-place positions, up from 39%.
This knowledge isn’t simply informative; it’s a transparent directive for web optimization consultants to recalibrate their methods in China’s distinctive digital house.
Baidu’s prioritization of its platforms, from Baike to Wenku, signifies greater than a choice – it’s a strategic transfer to retain customers inside its ecosystem.
Picture by creator, December 2023Baidu Baike, their model of Wikipedia, stands out for its closely moderated content material, guaranteeing high quality but additionally presenting a problem for content material creators.
The Q&A platform Baidu Zhidao, akin to Quora, and Baidu Wenku, a complete file-sharing service, additionally steadily seem in search outcomes, reflecting Baidu’s distinctive algorithm preferences.
These platforms, particularly Wenku, are likely to have a extra outstanding presence in Baidu’s SERPs in comparison with related platforms in Google’s ecosystem, underscoring the tailor-made method Baidu takes in assembly its person’s search wants.
China web optimization consultants like Stephanie Qian (of The Egg Firm) and Veronique Duong (of Rankwell) spotlight the potential of leveraging these high-authority domains for enhanced visibility.
This isn’t only a shift in Baidu’s SERPs; it’s a brand new playbook for Baidu’s web optimization success in 2024.
The Distinctive web optimization Panorama In China
Navigating China’s web optimization panorama entails understanding distinctive components past typical web optimization methods. Central to that is China’s rigorous web regulation, the Nice Chinese language Firewall, which goals to defend its populace from content material thought-about dangerous.
This results in slower load instances for websites hosted outdoors China because of content material scanning and potential blocking. Moreover, web sites on servers flagged for unlawful content material danger being fully inaccessible in mainland China.
Baidu, the dominant search engine in China, primarily serves the mainland’s Mandarin-speaking viewers, favoring content material in Simplified Chinese language. This contrasts with the Conventional Chinese language utilized in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Though Baidu indexes world content material, its algorithm reveals a transparent choice for Simplified Chinese language, an important consideration for web optimization focusing on this area.
Relating to market share, our examine counters the narrative of Bing overtaking Baidu.
Within the Chinese language market, Baidu stays the first supply of natural site visitors, contributing round 70% for our B2B shoppers, whereas Bing-China accounts for about 20% – based mostly on analytics knowledge of our B2B shoppers in China.
This contradicts stories based mostly on StatCounter knowledge, which is utilized by solely 0.01% of top-ranking pages on Baidu, and, as per BuiltWith, is simply utilized by 946 web sites.
In-Depth Evaluation Of 2024 Baidu Rating Components
Area And URL Constructions
The findings paint a transparent image: Baidu’s rating algorithm reveals a definite choice for sure TLDs and URL buildings, with a notable lean in direction of Chinese language TLDs and simplified, linguistically uniform URLs.
For world shoppers focusing on the Chinese language market, adapting to those preferences is vital.
TLDs: The Rise Of Chinese language High-Stage-Domains
The distribution of High-Stage Domains (TLDs) amongst Baidu’s top-ranking outcomes reveals a transparent choice:
Picture from creator, December 2023- .com domains lead with 72.59%.
- .cn domains have seen a big rise, from 3.8% in 2020 (by way of Searchmetrics) to 14.06% in 2023.
- .com.cn follows with a rise from 5.5% in 2020 to six.55%.
This upward development for Chinese language TLDs, notably .cn, suggests their rising significance as a possible rating issue for 2024.
Picture from creator, December 2023Subdomains and URL Constructions
A majority of rating pages, 58.42%, are discovered on a ‘www’ subdomain.
Curiously, URLs with Chinese language characters are uncommon, constituting solely 0.8% of rating URLs and even fewer in domains, at simply 0.0035%.
Picture from creator, December 2023Stephanie Qian from The Egg Firm feedback,
“Baidu’s official stance discourages using Chinese language characters in URLs, dispelling myths about their potential rating advantages.”
URL Size and Language Indicators
Opposite to the assumption that shorter URLs rank higher on Baidu, our examine discovered the common URL size of well-ranking pages to be 48.25 characters, with 2.3 folders/directories.
This discovering means that the inner linking construction would possibly play a extra essential position than URL size or proximity to the basis area.
Additional, solely 2.3% of top-ranking pages use Chinese language language indicators of their URLs (like, for instance, ‘cn.’ subdomain or ‘/cn/’ folder), supporting the narrative that Baidu favors mono-lingual Chinese language web sites.
This perception is especially related for multi-lingual worldwide web sites aiming to optimize for Baidu.
Onpage Greatest Practices For Chinese language web optimization
For Baidu web optimization in 2024, it’s not nearly together with key phrases however strategically putting them inside well-structured, related content material. This method aligns with fashionable web optimization practices the place person expertise and content material relevance reign supreme.
Title Tags And Meta-Descriptions
The typical size of title tags on top-ranking pages is 25 Chinese language characters, whereas meta-descriptions common 86 characters. These lengths guarantee visibility in Baidu’s SERPs with out being truncated.
Curiously, 36% of top-ranking pages use precise match key phrases within the title tags, a determine that rises to 54.4% for extra aggressive short-head key phrases.
Picture from creator, December 2023| Complete key phrase set | Shorthead key phrases | Midtail key phrases | Longtail key phrases | |
| Correlation rating | -0.1 | -0.17 | -0.14 | -0.02 |
| Proportion | 36% | 54.4% | 41.7% | 18.6% |
For meta-descriptions, 22.2% of top-ranking pages embrace the precise match key phrase, growing to 34.4% for short-head key phrases.
The positioning of the key phrase additionally issues: it’s sometimes on the entrance of the title tag however across the tenth place in meta-descriptions.
Headings: Hierarchy And Key phrase Placement
Headings play an important position in Baidu web optimization:
- 71.2% of top-ranking pages accurately use one H1 tag.
- Practically half (47.8%) use hierarchical headline buildings successfully.
- 21.1% incorporate the precise match key phrase in H1, often across the 4th or fifth place.
- H2 and H3 tags are utilized by 44% and 46% of top-ranking pages, respectively, averaging round 9 headlines every.
- Lesser used H4 headlines seem in 22.4% of top-ranking pages, whereas H5 and H6 are utilized by lower than 10%.
Picture from creator, December 2023Content material And Key phrase Density
Content material size is a big issue, with top-ranking pages averaging 4929 characters, though the median is 3147 characters.
About 85% of the content material is in Chinese language Characters, an important benchmark for worldwide firms localizing content material.
Actual match key phrases are used within the content material of 49% of top-ranking pages, with the chance growing for extra aggressive key phrases (57% for mid-tail and 66% for short-head key phrases).
Nonetheless, key phrase density is lower than 1% on common, indicating a transfer away from over-optimized, spammy content material.
The primary look of the key phrase is commonly throughout the first 18% of the content material.
The Function Of Pictures
Pictures are essential. Greater than 94% of top-ranking pages characteristic a mean of 27.5 photos; 55.4% use alt-tags, and 12.8% embrace the key phrase in not less than one alt-tag.
Inner Hyperlinks
Curiously, utilizing the key phrase within the anchor textual content of outbound hyperlinks doesn’t seem to dampen rating potential, as 20.3% of top-ranking pages achieve this.
Backlinks: A Key Issue In Baidu’s web optimization Rankings
Along with on-page web optimization components, backlinks play an important position in figuring out rankings on Baidu.
Our evaluation, backed by knowledge from DataForSEO and Majestic, reveals a powerful optimistic correlation between the variety of referring domains and improved rankings.
Amount And High quality Of Referring Domains
The amount of referring domains considerably impacts Baidu rankings. Web sites with the next variety of referring domains usually obtain higher positions.
Curiously, knowledge reveals that even websites with fewer referring domains can rank nicely. The 50 lowest-ranked domains had a mean of only one.1 linking domains in response to DataForSEO, and 1.3 as per Majestic’s knowledge.
This means that whereas the variety of backlinks is vital, there are alternatives for websites with fewer hyperlinks to nonetheless carry out nicely on Baidu.
The Influence Of Hyperlink High quality
Hyperlink high quality is equally essential.
There’s a powerful correlation between high-quality hyperlinks (as measured by Majestic’s Belief Circulate/Quotation Circulate and DataForSEO Rank) and higher rankings on Baidu.
Websites with higher-quality hyperlinks are likely to rank extra favorably.
Screenshot from Majestic’s Belief Circulate/Quotation Circulate and DataForSEO Rank, December 2023Moreover, top-ranking websites sometimes have a decrease DataForSEO Backlinks Spam Rating, underlining the significance of not simply the amount however the high quality and trustworthiness of backlinks.
These insights spotlight {that a} well-rounded backlink profile, combining a wholesome variety of hyperlinks with top quality, is important for reaching and sustaining excessive rankings on Baidu.
It’s a steadiness of garnering sufficient consideration to be seen as authoritative but guaranteeing that spotlight comes from respected, high-quality sources.
This method aligns with broader web optimization greatest practices, emphasizing the significance of constructing a pure and respected backlink profile for sustained web optimization success.
Rising Traits And Sensible web optimization Methods For Baidu
As web optimization methods evolve, understanding the influence of particular components like tags, safety protocols, and social media integrations is essential, particularly for Baidu.
The evaluation sheds gentle on these superior elements.
Tag Utilization And Construction
- Checklist Utilization: A big 86.5% of top-ranking pages make use of <ul> lists, averaging 10.8 lists per web page with 7.9 factors every. Curiously, 12.9% incorporate the goal key phrase inside these lists.
- Tables: 18.2% of top-ranking pages use <desk> tags, however a mere 3.1% embrace the goal key phrase inside these tables, suggesting tables are much less about key phrase placement and extra about structured knowledge presentation.
- Emphasizing Tags: 9.7% of top-ranking pages use emphasizing tags like <robust>, <em>, and <i>, indicating a selective method to their utilization.Technical web optimization and Safety
Technical web optimization And Safety
- HTTPS: Now an official rating issue for Baidu, the adoption of HTTPS has risen from 55% in 2020 (Searchmetrics’ examine) to 69.6% amongst top-ranking pages
- Cell Optimization: A big development is the decline in referencing separate cellular pages, from 35% in 2020 to only 10.3% as we speak, reflecting a shift in direction of responsive design.
- Google Tag Supervisor: Utilization amongst top-ranking pages has decreased from 8% in 2020 to solely 2.5%, presumably reflecting localization preferences in instruments and applied sciences.
Hreflang And Worldwide web optimization
- Hreflang Utilization: Simply 1.5% of top-ranking pages make the most of Hreflang, with consultants like Dan Taylor and Owain Lloyd-Williams noting Baidu’s not supporting this tag. Simon Lesser’s commentary highlights the dominance of home Chinese language-only websites on Baidu.
Rising Traits In Code And Markup
- HTML5 Adoption: From lower than 30% in 2020, HTML5 utilization amongst top-ranking pages has jumped to 53.2%.
- Schema.org: Regardless of Baidu’s official non-support, 11% of top-ranking pages implement Schema.org structured knowledge, with knowledgeable Owain Lloyd-Williams suggesting its potential advantages, whereas Adam Di Frisco advises warning because of Baidu’s present stance.
Social Media Integration
- Chinese language Social Media: 60% of top-ranking pages embrace Chinese language social media integrations, indicating its significance in Baidu’s web optimization.
- Western Social Media: In distinction, solely 2% combine Western platforms like Fb or YouTube, reflecting Baidu’s regional focus.
These findings underscore the evolving complexities of Baidu web optimization. Whereas some world greatest practices apply, others require adaptation for this distinctive market.
The strategic use of tags, embracing new applied sciences like HTML5, and localizing social media integrations emerge as pivotal components for reaching prime rankings on Baidu.
Past The Examine: Different Influential Components In Baidu web optimization
In Baidu web optimization, sure key rating components, whereas indirectly measurable, are vital.
Skilled Baidu web optimization professionals acknowledge the significance of person indicators, like click-through charges within the SERPs, as influential for rankings. This aligns with insights from Google’s antitrust trial paperwork, suggesting an analogous method by Baidu.
Equally vital is Baidu’s development in AI, particularly with Baidu ERNIE, surpassing Google’s BERT in understanding Chinese language language nuances.
This implies that Baidu makes use of superior NLP in its content material evaluation algorithms, making methods like WDF-IDF, tailor-made for Chinese language, very important for creating high-quality content material that resonates with each customers and Baidu’s AI-driven evaluation.
Debunking 4 Frequent Baidu web optimization Myths
Let’s debunk a few of the prevalent Baidu web optimization myths with insights from our latest examine.
Fantasy 1: Necessity Of A .cn Area
The frequent perception is that and not using a .cn area, success on Baidu is unattainable.
Nonetheless, our examine reveals that .com domains truly dominate Baidu’s search outcomes. Whereas there’s a rising development of Chinese language TLDs in prime SERPs, the concept that a .cn area is important is extra fantasy than actuality.
Fantasy 2: ICP License As A Rating Requirement
One other fantasy is that an ICP (Web Content material Supplier) license is necessary for rating on Baidu.
Opposite to this perception, lower than half (48%) of the top-ranking pages have an ICP reference. That is corroborated by our expertise with consumer web sites with out licenses nonetheless reaching rankings.
Fantasy 3: Solely Mainland China-Hosted Web sites Rank
The misunderstanding that solely web sites hosted in Mainland China can rank on Baidu is widespread. In actuality, any web site accessible in China can rank.
Nonetheless, it’s value noting that web sites hosted outdoors of China might expertise slower loading speeds, which might influence rankings.
Fantasy 4: Meta Key phrases As A Rating Issue
Many imagine that meta key phrases are nonetheless a related rating issue for Baidu.
Regardless of this perception, Baidu’s official stance, as famous by spokesperson Lee, is that meta key phrases are not thought-about of their rating algorithm.
These insights hopefully assist clear the air round Baidu web optimization. It is very important adapt to factual methods reasonably than following outdated myths.
Conclusion: Navigating The Future Of Baidu web optimization
As we demystify the panorama of Baidu web optimization for 2024, it’s evident that success hinges on a mix of embracing new developments and dismissing outdated myths.
From recognizing the dominance of .com domains, to the rise of .cn and .com.cn TLDs, to understanding the non-essential (however advisable) nature of ICP licenses and the diminished emphasis on meta key phrases, web optimization methods should evolve with these insights.
The rise of AI, the importance of person indicators, and the nuanced method to content material and backlinks underscore the necessity for classy, data-driven methods.
As Baidu continues to refine its algorithms, web optimization professionals should adapt, guaranteeing their ways not solely align with present greatest practices however are additionally poised to leverage future developments.
This journey via Baidu’s web optimization terrain equips practitioners with the data and instruments to navigate the complexities of rating on China’s main search engine, setting the stage for achievement within the dynamic world of digital advertising and marketing.
*We invite you to learn the total Baidu web optimization Rating Components Examine we created for you and draw your individual conclusions.
**It’s also possible to learn and evaluate to the Searchmetrics’ Baidu Rating Components Examine from 2020.
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