Baidu is the top search engine in China. It gets over 75% of the search marketing share in China. It’s the biggest Chinese language search engine in the world. It’s the best way to search for “answers” and for advertising online. In this article, I will show you how to use the Baidu search engine properly for online marketing, the information you need.
Baidu (Chinese name: 百度) (Nasdaq: BIDU; HKEX: 9888) was founded in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. The name of Baidu(百度) was quoted from a Chinese ancient poem “众里寻他千百度”, literally means “searching for thousands/ hundreds of times for it”. This name is really impressive and awesome!
Because Baidu is the biggest and best search engine in China, the netizens call it “度娘” as well. People will say “有事找度娘” meaning “If you have questions or problems, please Baidu it”.
The search engine is what makes Baidu famous, however, Baidu isn’t just a Search engine company. It was an early adopter of artificial intelligence (AI) in 2010 to make the content discovery on the internet easier. With the decades of developing, built “Baidu Brain,” (core AI technology engine), to develop new AI businesses.
The Intelligent Driving (self-driving services) & Other Growth Initiatives (OGI) are what Baidu focusing on right now. Baidu has become one of the largest AI companies and internet companies in the world.
Baidu’s mission: Make the complicated world simpler through technology
Baidu’s vision: To be a top global technology company which best understand users’ need and enables their growth.
Today, I’m only going to talk about the Baidu search. Because that’s really helpful for you to sourcing products/manufacturers, learn Chinese language, SEO on Baidu properly, etc.
Let’s see the Baidu search engine.
How to use Baidu search
- The Baidu search domain is Baidu.com.
- Enter the keywords or phrases you want to search for.
You will get better search results if you enter the keywords in Chinese because Baidu barely shows you English page resources. You should know that the Baidu search engine is focusing on Chinese language page results. If you need English results then you are going to the wrong place, you should use the Google search engine.
- Click on “百度一下” to search results.
Baidu search filter include webpages(网页), images(图片), videos(视频), Tieba post(贴吧), News & InfoInformation(资讯), Knowledge(知道), Documents(文库), Buyer & Sourcing(采购), Map(地图),Baidu Netdisk(百度网盘) etc.
You can filter the search results by clicking on what you need (webpage, images, documents, and so on).
You should know that Baidu may show Ads on the top page. The Baidu Ads will show “广告” below like this.
Besides, Baidu will show their own platform, sub-websites first, you should recognize that.
Baidu wenku (百度文库), Baidu knowledge (百度知道), and 百度百家号. Those are user-generated platforms owned by Baidu.
On the right widget, you will find related results and trending topics.
- Filter by date
You can always use the “filter by date” tool to get recent results. You need to click on the search tool “搜索工具”. And then, filter the results by date.
Baidu search tips and tricks
Now, let me show you some Baidu search Tips and Tricks so that you can get what you want quickly and efficiently. Besides, you can’t ignore the Chinese language to find where to click on it. Most people didn’t know how to use it at all. But if you’re an online searcher, then you must know the search engine’s tips and tricks.
The Baidu search tips and tricks are almost the same as Google search. If you don’t remember them, let me show you again.
- Add quotes “” to search exact-match phrase
You may not get the exact-match results if you don’t add the “” sign. Especially when you enter a long-phrase.
For example, I want to search for running shoes. If I don’t add the quotes “” sign, the results won’t be matched with what I need. If I add quotes “” sign, then it will show you exact-match results.
- Exclude words
Sometimes, Baidu will show their own sub-website at the top of the results. Like, Tieba post(贴吧), News & InfoInformation(百家号), Knowledge(百度知道), Documents(百度文库), Buyer & Sourcing(采购). And Baidu jingyan(百度经验).
If you don’t want the results from the Baidu sub-website, or subdomain you can add – sign to exclude them. For example, I want to search for running shoes wholesale. But I don’t want the results from Alibaba, so you need to add the – sign after the keywords.
- Search iterm results from specific website
This is a super useful tip for searching, no matter what search engine you are using. Because sometimes the website doesn’t have a search bar for you or the search results don’t meet your requirements. You can use this tip to search for what you need from a specific website.
For example, I want to find Cisco tutorials document. Then I will go to Baidu wenku(百度文库). You need to enter keywords or phrases and then add site:wenku.baidu.com. (keywords or phrases site: domain)
cisco tutorials documents (思科培训) site:wenku.baidu.com
See, the results are all from that domain website.
- Words in URL
The website’s URL always has meaning, like, example.com/blog or example.com/products/shoes. So you can target the words of URL. That said, you can use Baidu search engine to find the URL containing the words you need.
For example, I want to find video tutorials for Dreamweaver. So I just need to type Dreamweaver inurl: video
- Filetype
If you already knew what file type you need, like PDF, Word, PPT, etc. Then you can search for that specific filetype.
For example, I need to find some PDF files for Python. Then you can enter Python filetype:PDF
- “Or“, “And”
You can search more than one keyword with “And” or with the plus “+” sign. Of course, you can search either one of the keywords you entered with “Or”.
Ok, those Baidu search engine tips and tricks are enough for most people. So I won’t show you more tips right now. If you need any questions, please comment below or contact me.
How to translate Chinese language
Google translate is a good tool for language translation. However, it’s not the best tool for translating English to Chinese, or other languages to Chinese, verse.
You will get a better translation result from Chinese language translation tools. Like Baidu translation (百度翻译), Youdao translation (有道翻译).
If you search for a single word or phrase. Then the language translation may show up on the top results. Like this
Baidu baike(百度百科)
You really should use Baidu baike to search for companies, Chinese characters, Chinese cultures, etc. The results are more professional. Especially when you don’t know where to find good results.
Baidu baike is so similar to Wikipedia. It’s the best Chinese pedia in the world. It has contents of history, science, education, people, culture, star, University, city, etc. So wide range of things.
However, all the pages are in Chinese. It’s also user-generated contents. But it’s more professional than before, because there are more and more professional users generated content there.
You might want to check Chinese companies to see how’s the company growing, what’s news about it, etc. You can go to Baidu baike to see if there’s anything about it. You can go deeper into it.
As for Baidu SEO or advertising, Baidu provides free tools, like Baidu keywords, Baidu trending. I’m afraid users won’t read the long content. In case you miss reading about it, So I will update a new post.
If you have any questions, please comment below or contact me. Thank you.
