SEO by platform · Updated
Baidu SEO: the basics of ranking in China
Baidu is China's leading search engine. Ranking there means simplified Chinese content written for Chinese users, a site that loads fast inside mainland China, verification in Baidu's webmaster platform, and usually hosting in China, which requires an ICP filing.
Founder, SEO·AEO·GEO
Builds SEO·AEO·GEO and writes the crawler, schema, and citation research published here.
How Baidu serves pages to crawlers
Baidu's crawler (Baiduspider) is generally considered less capable with JavaScript than Googlebot, so server-rendered HTML matters even more.
Steps
- Register with the Baidu Search Resource Platform (Baidu's webmaster tools) and verify your site; registration may require a Chinese phone number.
- Submit your sitemap and use its link submission tools.
- Write in simplified Chinese, researched for how Chinese users search, not machine-translated.
- Host in mainland China or near it, and use a CDN that performs well in China; services blocked in China (some fonts, scripts and analytics) can slow or break pages.
- Hosting in mainland China requires an ICP filing.
- Make sure robots.txt allows Baiduspider.
How it differs from Google SEO
- Content needs to be in HTML; rely less on JavaScript rendering.
- Chinese-language platforms (Baidu Baike, Zhihu and others) carry weight in results and for brand visibility.
- Local legal and content rules apply.
Check it on your own site
What the free audit tests for this
- Raw HTML visibility
- robots.txt rules
- Load time
- Lang attribute
One URL, about 20 seconds, no login. You get the result of every check and the exact fix for the top three issues.
Audit your website freeFAQ
Do I need a Chinese domain for Baidu?+
Not strictly, but a site hosted in mainland China (which requires an ICP filing) usually performs better for Chinese users and Baidu.
Sources
- Baidu Search Resource Platform — Baidu
- Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites — Google Search Central