"Baidu, long a source of bitter complaints and frustration among Chinese internet users for its poor quality search results and questionable advertising practices, was the target of renewed public anger in January."
Could this be because the state got involved in management?
(not surprised)
TorontoBoy
4:46 am on Mar 2, 2019 (gmt 0)
Baidu is really good for Chinese maps and for searching for Chinese sources. If you are looking for anything else I just stick with Google. Baidu can be very frustrating, as you need to wade through too many commercial links. Trying Baidu in English? Why bother?
bill
1:57 am on Mar 3, 2019 (gmt 0)
The Chinese may be complaining about it, but I don't see them flocking to Baidu's competitors in any great numbers yet.
iamlost
3:09 am on Mar 3, 2019 (gmt 0)
Funny to see Baidu being compared, poorly, to a Google that has been attempting for a decade to become more like Baidu. :)
I especially appreciated In its defence, Baidu said information from its own service accounted for only 10 per cent of its search results and promised to improve its service. Of course, when that 10% is the first page or three of each query result... So many B<->G equivalencies.
I consider this as less about Baidu itself than about Baidu as a convenient meme hook from which to officially contemplate specific openings in the Great Firewall. None of which are likely to be Google (or other !Chinese SEs or SM) as that would pretty much defeat the GFW's raison d'être.
TorontoBoy
5:34 pm on Mar 3, 2019 (gmt 0)
As I have Chinese and English content I encourage all Chinese search engines, and especially Baidu, to index my sites. With Google, who also indexes my site, I can verify that using a Google search I can find my content, maybe not at my desired page rank, but I can find it. Baidu, on the other hand, no matter what I do, much of my content is not found on their search engine. This is also true for the other Chinese search engines.
A search engine that indexes your site daily but the results are not available on their search is simply a useless drag on your web site.
As with all Chinese companies, Xi Jinping requires that all Chinese people companies pledge complete alliance to the CCP. This is certainly true with Baidu and the GFW. Next in line is Baidu profitability. Finally there is the Chinese viewing public. This order will not change for the foreseeable future. Chinese people can lament but there is nothing they can do to change this.
