Baidu, Inc. (, ), simply known as
Baidu and incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a
Chinese search engine for websites, audio files, and images. Baidu offers 57 search and community services including
Baidu Baike, an online collaboratively-built encyclopedia, and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum. Baidu was established in 2000 by co-founders,
Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who have studied and worked overseas before returning to China. Baidu.com Inc. is registered in the
Cayman Islands. In April 2010, Baidu ranked 7
th overall in
Alexa's internet rankings. In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the
NASDAQ-100 index.
Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files. Baidu offers multi-media content including MP3 music and movies, and is the first in China to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search.
Baidu proactively censors its content in line with government regulations.
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The name "Baidu" is a quote from the last line of Xin Qiji's classical poem "Green Jade Table in The Lantern Festival" saying:
"Having searched for him hundreds and thousands of times in the crowd, suddenly turning back by chance, I find him there in the dimmest candlelight."
The context of the poem is that in ancient China, girls had to stay indoors and the Lantern Festival was one of the few times they could come out. In the sea and chaos of lantern lights, they would sneak away to meet their love and exchange promises to meet again next year.
A summary of the entire poem: Flowers bursting into bloom in the sky, stars falling like rain (fireworks/meteor shower), Whole streets filled with perfume, jeweled horses pulling ornate carriages, fish and dragon lanterns dancing throughout the entire night. A body decorated with golden thread and butterfly trinket, laughter that has a subtle fragrance. Having searched for this person until exhaustion, when suddenly turning back by chance, I find him standing lonely in the far end of the street in the waning light.
Road to Baidu
In 1994,
Robin Li joined IDD Information Services, a New Jersey division of
Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of
The Wall Street Journal. He also did work on better algorithms for search engines. He remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997.
In 1996, while at IDD, Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm for search engines results page ranking and received a US patent for the technology. He later used this technology for the Baidu search engine.
Services
Baidu offers a
number of services to locate information, products and services using Chinese-language search terms, such as, search by
Chinese phonetics, advanced search, snapshots, spell checker, stock quotes, news, knows, postbar, images, video and space information, and weather, train and flight schedules and other local information. The
user-agent string of Baidu search engine is
baiduspider.
*Baidu Map (map.baidu.com)
Baidu started its Japanese search service (www.baidu.jp), run by Baidu Japan, the company's first regular service outside of China. It includes a search bar for web pages and image searches, user help and advanced services.
Baidu Post Bar provides users with a query-based searchable community to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences. It is an online community bound tightly with Baidu's search service.
Baidu News provides links to a selection of local, national and international news, and presents news stories in a searchable format, within minutes of their publication on the Web. Baidu News uses an automated process to display links to related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story.
Chinese government and
Chinese industry sources stated that Baidu received a license from
Beijing, which allows the search engine to become a full-fledged news website. Thus Baidu will be able to provide its own reports, besides showing certain results as a search engine. The company is already getting its news department ready. Baidu is the first Chinese search engine to receive such a license.
Baidu Knows () provides users with a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience. Through Baidu Knows, registered members of Baidu Knows can post specific questions for other members to respond and also answer questions of other members.
Baidu MP3 Search provides algorithm-generated links to songs and other multimedia files provided by Internet content providers. Baidu started with a popular music search feature called "MP3 Search" and its comprehensive lists of popular Chinese music (Baidu 500) based on download numbers. Baidu locates file formats such as MP3, WMA and SWF. The multimedia search feature is mainly used in searches for Chinese pop music. While such works are copyrighted under Chinese law, Baidu claims on its legal disclaimer that linking to these files does not break Chinese law. This has led other local search engines to follow the practice, including Google China, which uses an intermediate company called Top100 to offer a similar MP3 Search service.
Baidu Image Search enables users to search millions of images on the Internet. Baidu Image Search offers features such as search by image size and by image file type. Image listings are organized by various categories, which are updated automatically through algorithms.
Baidu Video Search enables users to search for and access through hyperlinks of online video clips that are hosted on third parties’ Websites.
Baidu Space (hi.baidu.com), the social networking service of Baidu, allows registered users to create personalized homepages in a query-based searchable community. Registered users can post their Web logs, or blogs, photo album and certain personal information on their homepages and establish their own communities of friends who are also registered users. By July 2009, it had reached 100 million registered users
Baidu Encyclopedia, is China's largest encyclopedia by users and page views/web traffic; second largest encyclopedia by article count (after Hudong).
China Digital Village Encyclopedia (), in June 2009, Baidu announced it would compile the largest digital rural encyclopedia in China, according to China Securities Journal. It is expected to include 500,000 administrative villages in China, covering 80% of the total 600,000 villages in China. Baidu is creating the content of this encyclopedia largely from participants of its 'rural information competition' () (xiangcun.baidu.com), on which it has spent roughly five million yuan on incentives. Baidu sees China's rural areas as great potential for electronic business (e-business), evidenced by the fact that revenue grew the fastest from agriculture, forestry, animals and fishery in the company's keyword promotion project, a crucial source of Baidu's total revenue. In addition to Baidu Encyclopedia, the company will scale up keyword promotion and take advantage of other products, such as Baidu Zhidao and Baidu Youa, to provide consultation, brand ad exhibitions and online network marketing/sales platform support, marketing information for rural tourism and the promotion of local products.
*Baidu Search Ranking provides listings of search terms based on daily search queries entered on Baidu.com. The listings are organized by categories and allow users to locate search terms on topics of interest.
Baidu Web Directory enables users to browse and search through websites that have been organized into categories.
Baidu Government Information Search allows users to search various regulations, rules, notices and other information announced by People's Republic of China government entities.
Baidu Postal Code Search enables users to search postal codes in hundreds of cities in China.
Educational Website Search allows users to search the Websites of educational institutions. Baidu University Search allows users to search information on or browse through the Websites of specific universities in China
Baidu Legal Search enables users to search a database that contains national and local laws and regulations, cases, legal decisions, and law dictionaries.
Baidu Love is a query-based searchable community where registered users can write and post messages to loved ones.
Baidu Patent Search enables users to search for specific Chinese patents and provides basic patent information in the search results, including the patent’s name, application number, filing date, issue date, inventor information and brief description of the patent.
Baidu Games is an online channel that allows users to search or browse through game-related news and content.
Baidu-Hexun Finance (finance.baidu.com), a financial information Website,in collaboration with Hexun.com, a financial information service provider in China with news reporting and securities consulting licenses. Users can search or browse through economic and financial news, information relating to personal wealth management and related market statistics.
Baidu Statistics Search enables users to search statistics that have been published by the Government of the People's Republic of China
Baidu Entertainment is an online channel for entertainment-related news and content. Users can search or browse through news and other information relating to specific stars, movies, television series and music.
Baidu Dictionary provides users with lookup and text translation services between Chinese and English.
Baidu Youa (youa.baidu.com), an online shopping/e-commerce platform through which businesses can sell their products and services at Baidu-registered stores.
Baidu Desktop Search, a free, downloadable software, which enables users to search all files saved on their computer without launching a Web browser.
Baidu Sobar, a free, downloadable software, displayed on a browser's tool bar and makes the search function available on every Web page that a user browses.
Baidu Wireless provides various services for mobile phones, including a Chinese-input FEP for various popular operating systems including Symbian S60v5, Windows Mobile and Google Android.
Baidu Anti-Virus offers anti-virus software products and computer virus-related news.
Baidu Safety Center, launched in 2008, provides users with free virus scanning, system repair and online security evaluations
Baidu Internet TV (known as Baidu Movies) allows users to search, watch and download free movies, television series, cartoons, and other programs hosted on its servers
Chinese-language voice assistant search services for Chinese speakers visiting Japan was launched in 2008 in collaboration with Japanese personal handy-phone system operator Willcom Inc.
discovery.baidu.com, joint venture with Discovery Communications, focusing on science, technology, space, natural history, engineering, paleontology, archaeology, history and culture.
P4P
Baidu focuses on generating revenues primarily from
online marketing services. Baidu's
Pay for placement (P4P)
platform enables its customers to reach users who search for information related to their products or services. Customers use automated online tools to create text-based descriptions of their web pages and bid on
keywords that trigger the display of their webpage information and link. Baidu's P4P platform features an automated online sign-up process that customers use to activate their accounts at any time. The P4P platform is an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to customers who bid for priority
placement in the search results. Baidu also uses third-party distributors to sell some of its online marketing services to end customers and offers discounts to these distributors in consideration of their services.
Baidu offers certain consultative services, such as keyword suggestions, account management and performance reporting. Baidu suggests synonyms and associated phrases to use as keywords or text in search listings. These suggestions can improve click-through rates of the customer's listing and increase the likelihood that a user will enter into a transaction with the customer. Baidu also provides online daily reports of the number of click throughs, clicked keywords and the total costs incurred, as well as statistical reports organized by geographic region.
ProTheme
Baidu offers ProTheme services to some of its Baidu Union members, which enable these members to display on their properties its customers'
promotional links that are relevant to the subject and content of such members’ properties. Baidu generates revenues from ProTheme services based on the number of clicks on its customers' links and share the revenues with its Baidu Union members in accordance with pre-agreed terms. Baidu's fixed-ranking services allow customers to display query-sensitive text links at a designated location on its search results pages. Its Targetizement services enable customers to reach their targeted Internet users by displaying their advertisements only when their targeted Internet users browse Baidu's certain Web pages.
Baidu TV
Baidu operates its advertising service, Baidu TV, in partnership with Ads it! Media Corporation, an online advertising agency and technology company. Baidu TV provides advertisers access to the websites of its Baidu Union members, allowing advertisers to choose Websites on which they post their video advertisements with the aid of its advertisement targeting and matching system. It also offers a
brand advertising service, Brand-Link. In June 2008, Baidu launched My Marketing Center, a customized platform integrating industry information, market trends and business, and industry news and reports to assist existing customers in their sales and marketing efforts. Other forms of its online advertising services allow customers to display
query sensitive and non-query sensitive advertisements on its websites, including graphical advertisements.
Baidu's brand advertising feature can help the advertisers to show a branded message including images to increase brand awareness and click-through rates (up to 75%).
Baidu Union
Baidu Union (
union.baidu.com) consists of a number of third-party websites and
software applications. Baidu Union members incorporate a Baidu
search box or
toolbar and match its
sponsored links with the content on their properties. Their users can conduct search via the Baidu search box or toolbar and can click the sponsored links located on their properties. Baidu has also launched programs through which it displays the
online advertising of its customers on Baidu Union websites, and share the fees generated by these advertisements with the owners of these Baidu Union websites.
Competition
Baidu competes with
Google Hong Kong,
Yahoo! China,
Microsoft's
Bing and
MSN Messenger,
Sina,
Sohu's
Sogou,
Wikipedia,
NetEase's
Youdao,
Tencent's
Soso.com and
PaiPai,
Alibaba’s
Taobao,
TOM Online,
Xunlei's
Gougou and
EachNet.
Baidu is the No. 1 search engine in China, controlling 63 percent of China's market share as of January 2010, according to iResearch.
The number of Internet users in China rose to 338 million by the end of June 2009, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.
In an August 2010 Wall Street Journal article, Baidu has played down its benefit from Google's moving its China search service to Hong Kong, but Baidu's share of revenue in China's search—advertising market grew six percentage points in the second quarter to 70%, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.
Censorship
According to the
China Digital Times, Baidu is online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search.
Domain name hacked
On 12 January 2010, Baidu.com's DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the
Iranian Cyber Army, thought to be behind the attack on
Twitter during the
2009 Iranian election protests, making the actual site unusable for four hours. Internet users were met with a page saying "This site has been attacked by Iranian Cyber Army". Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages.
Baidu later launched legal action against
Register.com for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com's technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite their failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu's domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to pull off the
domain hijacking.
See also
Software industry in China
China Software Industry Association
Intellectual property in the People's Republic of China
References
Further reading
Lee, Melanie, "NEWSMAKER-Baidu founder rules China's Web with pragmatism", Reuters, Tue Jan 19, 2010
External links
(Wikinvest)
Category:Baidu
Category:Internet search engines
Category:Chinese websites
Category:Dot-com
Category:Internet properties established in 2000
Category:Companies in the NASDAQ-100 Index
Category:Science and technology in the People's Republic of China
Category:Privately held companies of the People's Republic of China
Category:Internet companies of China
