What’s the Difference between Baidu SEO and Google SEO?

Recently my team and I have written a new article about #BaiduSEO, where we outline the difference between Baidu SEO and Google Seo.

This is the full article:

https://www.enlybee.com/blog/the-best-guide-to-baidu-seo-marketing-in-china-2021/

and here are some highlights below:

1. Ranking Advantage Of Own Products

Enter any popular keyword, and the ranking of Baidu’s own products will appear on the Baidu homepage. Even if these own products have not done any SEO, they can still rank on the home page. Google treats its own products equally. If it violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines, even if it is its own product, Google will ban it. The demoted rights of Google Japan and Google Chrome are good examples.

Therefore, to do a good job of Google SEO, you must strictly abide by the Google Webmaster Guidelines, and there are no shortcuts. To do a good job in Baidu SEO, if you want to achieve short-term results, it will be a good idea to try to take advantage of Baidu’s own platform.

2. User Behaviour On The Home Page Of Search Results

After studying and comparing Baidu and Google homepage maps, a research institution found that there are still differences in the behaviour of Baidu and Google users.

In Google, users usually only need half the time of Baidu users to find the information they want (30 seconds for Google and 55 seconds for Baidu), and most users only look at the first three results.

On the contrary, in Baidu, users usually sweep the content on the search results from beginning to end. At the same time, we noticed that on Baidu’s heat map, red dots indicate clicks, which appeared in large numbers on the Baidu search box and related searches at the bottom, instead of the web pages of search results.

This situation largely relates to the quality of the search. Baidu’s search results are relatively chaotic. In many cases, users simply cannot tell which are paid ads and which are natural search results. And usually, the content of paid advertisements does not meet the needs of users well, so users may choose to refine the search keywords again or go to the bottom to see related recommendations to find the content they want again.

Therefore, Baidu users spend an average of 55 seconds, almost twice the search time of Google to find the information they want.

However, things always have two sides. The poor search experience makes Baidu users more inclined to browse the entire SERP page. So, for Baidu SEO, our keyword strategy can be more than the top three. According to the different word categories, set high-ranking strategies for these words.

For example, navigation search, such as “a certain brand, a certain brand’s official website”, users of these words get directed to your website and be ranked first on the homepage; also, you can assign most of the resources to these words. If you encounter an information search, such as “how is a brand product, evaluation, recommendation”, etc., use the strategy of multiple rankings evenly distributed in each position of the search result page, and you can get attention and clicks.

3. Index Of The Page

Judging from the speed of the page index, Google is faster than Baidu, and only a small number of external entries can follow the link to your website and build an index. But Baidu is different. New sites will not be indexed immediately, or even for a long time. After the new website has passed Baidu’s assessment period, Baidu will start to index your website.

Of course, although Google’s indexing speed is faster and has many pages, Google still has a review and screening mechanism, therefore some websites have several pages when they are first indexed, but after some time, they reduce. However, Baidu generally passes the review of your website content for a period before starting to index your website.

4. Strategies For The New Website

Both Baidu and Google have their own audit standards for the new website. Google has a Google sandbox, and Baidu has its own review period. From the perspective of the duration, it is not good enough, and both are 3-6 months.

The difference is that after the review period, the base for Google’s criteria for judging keyword rankings is the quality of the page itself and the recommendation of external links. It will not affect the ranking of a specific page because your site is new. Baidu will still consider the DR of the entire site, so it is difficult for a new website to obtain rankings of hot and difficult words from Baidu. In Baidu, after being reprinted through big websites, the traffic and rankings are robbed by big websites. For Google, a new website can get the ranking of hot words.

5. Compliance With Robots Agreement

Google fully complies with the robots agreement. Once the robots block Google spiders, Google will not crawl and index the website. However, Baidu does not seem to abide by it. After you set up the robots protocol for the website, Baidu Spider will sometimes bypass/ignore the file and continue to crawl your space files.

6. Judging Criteria For External Links

Google and Baidu have different criteria for judging external links. For Google, external links are more like external recommendations. They are not limited to the links that you can click directly in the tag. Recommendation factors from the social side can also affect rankings.

For Baidu, links are links not directly related to social. At the same time, Baidu will also recognize links not written in the tag (Google does not accept this). Regardless of the form of the link, if the content recommended is valuable, it will be counted as an external link and passed on.

In addition, the importance of external links differs from Baidu and Google. Google usually believes that external links are important signals for the website, even more than on-site SEO optimisation.

Because Google is fully capable of indexing and identifying a website, the data recommended by users is what Google looks at. But Baidu is different; the importance of external links is not as large, and the recommendation mechanism of China’s Internet is not mature enough, so the credibility of external links is not high. Baidu’s website indexing and recognition capabilities are not as strong as Google. Therefore, for Baidu SEO, it is important to do a good job in site optimisation, especially keyword deployment, website structure combing, including navigation, and internal chain mechanisms.

7. Content Update

Baidu seems to pay more attention to content updates than Google. A website or page with continuously updated content is friendly to Baidu. You can try to search for some popular keywords in unpopular industries to see the similarities and differences of the top ten websites in the search results. You will find that the content of Google’s top ten websites is rarely updated, and if you want to rank on the Baidu homepage, the website must have a massive content update mechanism. Baidu gives fresh content a much higher weight than Google.

8. Original Identification Mechanism

Internet reprinting and plagiarism are commonplace. For search engines, the ability to recognise originals is vital. Baidu has done an unsatisfying job in this regard. Baidu pays more attention to “where does this content appear”, while Google pays more attention to “where does this content come from”. They are fundamentally different. The former looks at the “backer” and the latter seek the “origin.”

9. Popular Events Effect Speed

Google processes hot information relatively quickly and can often find the location of news sources very accurately. Baidu relies more on big websites to get popular information. Once there is hot content on a small website, but it is not immediately discovered by a big website, it is difficult for Baidu to discover it in a short period of time.

So what are your most common challenges and struggles with SEO in general and with China SEO specifically?

Please let me know in the comment or Connet me and tell me more. I am happy to help. [email protected]