What about the quality of the SERP [webmasterworld.com]s? Are the results produced by Baidu significantly better than Google's? Early on a lot of our members in China mentioned a big discrepancy in the quality of search results. How is relevancy today?

I think the most important reason why Google is not successful in China is that the understanding of Chinese netizens of Google is not as good as that of Baidu.

English skill is not the main problem. Almost each university/college student can at least read and write English fairly well.

Google meets some problems in China besides its localization strategy. Although many people adore Google, its services are not so practical.

I think the results of both google and baidu are good for users.

A lot of people have been talking about this article: The Rise of Baidu (That's Chinese for Google) [nytimes.com] from the New York Times. (may require registration to read) It gives some insite into the founding of Baidu and also the reasons for its popularity.

I have personal experience that Baidu will drop your site entirely from their index seemingly for no reason and with no recourse. The company which I consulted for is now struggling, and is now considering advertising on Baidu to get their traffic back. Which may be exactly what Baidu wanted when they delisted them...

Then you have the issue of not being able to tell paid ads from SERPs. Further, click fraud is reportedly rampant and unchecked on Baidu.

These factors combined make me deeply suspicious of Baidu's true motives, and their usefulness as a search engine.

[edited by: Rendezvous at 3:54 pm (utc) on Sep. 26, 2006]

I am in biz of sem. My view of google's slump is, mostly beacuse of poor localization of SERP. Yes, baidu's in trouble of click fraud. But they use great hell lot of effort in "FEEDING" local result to users. They run their search in a more human way, not just focusing in technology itself. e.g. they will keep an eye on the trend of the society and link up all relevant content to searchers. Means that, ppl love them because baidu feeds their appetite. Simple and straight. Human vs. Machine result. Sometime, western robot simply does not respond to human correctly, especially not speaking in English.

If you don't understand this paragragh, that's becuase I am a Chinese too.

Baidu reinforces dominance in China's on-line search market: survey
[english.people.com.cn]

A survey of China's on-line search market shows that Nasdaq-listed Baidu has reinforced its dominance in China with an increase of more than 10 percent in market share in one year.

A report in Tuesday's China Youth Daily said the survey showed the market share of Baidu had risen sharply over the past year to 62.1 percent, leaving main rival Google far behind at 25.3 percent.

Compared with a similar survey last year, Baidu's market share in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou had increased 13 to 14 percentage points, the survey said.

However, the report also cited a research finding that Baidu seemed to be more popular with students, while Google was favored by China's white-collar classes.

[edited by: bill at 1:11 am (utc) on Sep. 30, 2006]
[edit reason] linked to article (fair use) [/edit]

because most chinese people like the production made in China.

I used to live in Holland and used a lot google. I have been living in China for one year now... One year ago, I always use Google first, then use Baidu as an alternative to see whether I can get some other good results. At this moment, I use Baidu as primary search engine and Google as Alternative.

I am not the only person who changed from Google to Baidu.. The reason is because:

1. Stablity... Google's server is very unstable in China. Very often I can not visit it. All my friends agreed with that.

2. Actually, google has a better results. However, people tend to think that Baidu can have a better results because Baidu is based in China, understand the complicity of Chinese.

When I was in China last week I was surprised how many of the basic Google URLs I'm used to are unreachable there.

google.com

is a dead end most of the time. Forget about Gmail. Even the Chinese I was working with try the

google.com

when attempting to use Google as Baidu uses

baidu.com

as its primary URL. The secret of course is to use

google.cn

, but not everyone seems to know that. It makes Google seem more blocked than it really is.

I actually found the Baidu SERPs more helpful on a number of occasions. When Google was not returning the information I needed and Baidu was getting me what I needed on the first page of results I found myself relying increasingly on Baidu. Over the course of a week I completely migrated from the primary use of Google to Baidu. I don't work that way outside China, but inside China it seems like an almost necessary progression.

I have the same feeling with Bill and Guoqi. Though Google China is advancing, we must admit that baidu is advancing even faster than that of google China. That the secret behind the change of people's search habit.

The secret of course is to use google.cn, but not everyone seems to know that.

goolge.com is redirect to google.cn automatically for most Chinese users; Redirection will be cancelled only after several times of google English search queries.
By the way, welcome to China, Bill

goolge.com is redirect to google.cn automatically for most Chinese users

In my case I was in Shanghai, and every time I used a

google.com

URL I was blocked, not re-directed. A lot of bookmarks and commonly used shortcuts on my laptop became useless in China. A re-direct would have been preferable. ;)

After reading this thread, I just went to google.cn for the first time. I searched for some of the keywords that my site comes up at the top of the results at google.com and saw that the results were the same.

Mainly because of its niche, my site hardly gets any traffic from China, but it's good to know that at least it's not being censored.

2. Actually, google has a better results. However, people tend to think that Baidu can have a better results because Baidu is based in China, understand the complicity of Chinese.

In fact, for Chinese language,it is very different from other languages like English etc. It must be splited. Baidu is really professional in this area.