Baidu SEO Algorithms Must Read 2020

Last Updated on May 22, 2024

oEvery webmaster is no stranger to the Baidu SEO algorithms, especially for those SEO practitioners that are targeting the Chinese market. Since 2013, Baidu has successively announced 13 algorithm changes. Throughout these 7 years, thanks to Baidu’s unremitting efforts, henceforth we are no longer seeing – keyword stuffing, buying and selling links, or various deceptive actions and cheating websites. In comparison to situation before, the phenomenon of Baidu advertisements has been greatly improved.

It helps to purify the Internet search ecosystem and encourages all Baidu SEO practitioners to put efforts on building quality website contents. Let’s take a look at what Baidu has done in the past seven years in brief and what Baidu SEO algorithms it has launched to standardize the search ecosystem to guide our work.

 

Website page content quality: Content is King

A. For Page Content Quality Issues

Baidu released the SEO algorithm (name. Hurricane) in July 2017 to crack down on bad copywriting problems and guide webmasters to concentrate on building high-quality content rather than opportunistic behaviors and misappropriation of others’ results.

There are three main problems of page content quality :
1. Plagiarizing others hard work: Usually a large amount of website content is being plagiarized from original content producers such as other sites, mini programs or WeChat official accounts etc. The copied contents are usually fragmented, with chaotic layouts and thus the article becomes poorly readable. Thus, you will see obvious traces of plagiarism from others sources, and no value added to users.

Problem 1 (Example): The article has obvious traces of content plagiarism

 

Problem 2 (Example): Bad content logic, and poor reading experience.

 

2. Non-Related Cross-Industry Content: In order to obtain more traffic, the site/mini program publishes content from other non-related industries.

Problem 3 (Example): Food mini program published football-related content

 

Problem 4 (Example): Multiple industry content within the mini program.

 

3. Station group: Compared to above, the behavior of constructing multiple sites/mini programs in batch to obtain search traffic.

Problem 5 (Example): Multiple mini programs reuse the same template, with low content quality and high similarity

 

B. For Bad Content Aggregator Websites

Soon in February 2020, Baidu launched the SEO algorithm StrongWind to control the impact of maliciously constructing content aggregator websites consequently. In short, a content aggregator website is a site that collects data from other sources across the Internet and puts the information in one place where users can access it.

1. The content of the page does not match the site industry, or the site does not have a focus area, and mostly collects and pieces content.

Problem 6 (Example): Scattered content on the website

 

2. Likewise, the page content does not match the title and tagging on the page

Problem 7 (Example): The page content does not match the title

 

3. Static search results page generated by the website search function

Problem 8 (Example):：Static search results page

 

4. No valid information, invalid aggregator page

Problem 9 (Example): Aggregator page without valid information

 

C. Baidu SEO Algorithm (Name. Drizzle) for Low Quality B2B Websites.

As a rule to guide B2B related website, Baidu released Drizzle in June 2018.

Baidu regulates B2B websites to avoid fake official websites, keywords stuffing over title, the interspersed benefit method (such as contact phone number), content plagiarism, inappropriate and incompatible sentences, non-compliant sites will be penalized.

1. Cheating and Misleading Page Titles

Problem 10 (Example): It is not the official website, but the title contains words such as “official website” to mislead search users

 

2. Benefit Information in the Body of the Page

Problem 11 (Example): Special symbols over the content

 

3. Bad & Violated Content

Problem 12 (Example): B2B Mini programs use other non-related news into the page.

 

4. Low Quality Content

Problem 13 (Example): The website is displaying images with empty description

 

D. Baidu SEO Algorithm (Name. BlueSky) to Avoid Catalog Selling.

In November 2016, Baidu Search launched the BlueSky in particular to crack down news sites selling soft articles and catalogs.

Soft contents and buying catalogs are being advertised on some so-called high-quality websites, and get benefits from advertisers.

Problem 14 (Example): Catalog selling

 

Baidu SEO Algorithms about Meeting Users’ Needs

A. Title Guideline – Page Title Violations

In September 2017, Baidu Search released the algorithm (name. Breeze) to severely punish developers for cheating through page titles, such as incorrect text, false content, repeated keywords, deceiving users by getting clicks.

 

1. False Content Title

Problem 15 (Example): Unofficial website but using official website title

 

Problem 16 (Example): The title indicates that the novel can be downloaded, but the page induces a negative case of downloading the APP

 

2. Duplicate titles

Problem 17 (Example): Duplicate keywords & Keywords stuffing on title

 

B. Baidu SEO Algorithms- Breeze  3.0 – for Violated Downloads

In order to regulate download sites and mini programs deceptive downloads, bundled downloads and other harmful behaviors, Baidu released the algorithm (Breeze) version 2.0 and 3.0 in April 2018 and October 2018. Later, this algorithm covers from cheating title to downloads deceiving on sites and mini programs.

 

1. Downloading sites – PC version

Problem 18 (Example): Downloading Page

 

2. The interface after the user clicks on download button (Bundle Download)

Problem 19 (Example): Bundle Download

 

C. Algorithm (TradeWind) – for the induction problem of false pages

In May 2019, Baidu released TradeWind, which prohibits websites or mini program from using the pagination button for user behavior’s induction.

 

1. When the user clicks on the pagination button, the user will be redirected to other channel pages of the website

Problem 20 (Example): The user clicks “Next Page” and being redirected to other site channel directory.

 

D. Standard Regulation of Violation – For Information that Violates Laws and Regulations

This regulation includes website content & search keywords such as pornography, gambling, fraud, document forgery, etc.

 

User Friendliness Baidu SEO Algorithms

A. Algorithm (Ice Bucket) – for Mobile Landing Page with Bad User Experience.

On August 22, 2014, Baidu released Ice Bucket for low-quality pages. After continuous update and iteration, the Ice Bucket was upgraded in November 2018 and version 5.0 was launched subsequently.

 

1. Layout & Distancing

Problem 21 (Example): Poor page layout and unreasonable paragraph distancing on H5 webpage

 

2. Font Size

Problem 22 (Example): The font size is small, causing bad user experience.

 

3. Responsive Website

Problem 23 (Example): Poor responsive site that fails to display PC site on mobile version.

 

B. Content Viewing Rights for Users

When users browse through some websites, they may encounter situations such as to complete certain actions in order to read full text, view pictures, watch video content, etc.

In addition to users’ rights to access information, Baidu’s released content rights guidelines on April 2019.

 

1. Content Access

i. Problem 24 (Example):：Users need to log in to view the full picture

 

ii. Problem 25 (Example): Users need to log in to view the full forum content

 

iii. Problem 26 (Example): Users need to download or using APP to read the full content.

 

2. Feature & Function

Problem 27 (Example): Website is forcing user is to open APP to enable the consulting function

 

Problem 28 (Example): The website is forcing user to login to enable the search function

 

Website Security Issues

A. Algorithm (Thunder) For Malicious Clicks

In effect from November 2017, Baidu released Thunder to severely crack down cheating website clicks.

In summary, Thunder 2.0 is mainly aimed at those creating “hyperlink maliciously” and “malicious clicks”.  Under those circumstances, they will be facing penalties like – taken off search result pages, removing malicious links, and clicks zeroed.

The cheating action of the site in that case will be recorded into the site history, and for severe cases, the site will be permanently blocked.

 

B. Algorithm (Beacon) For Website Hijacking

In February 2017, Baidu issued a punishment announcement against malicious website hijacking. After that, in May 2018, Baidu launched Beacon 2.0, which severely punishes “Stealing of user data” and “malicious hijacking”. In March 2019, Baidu upgraded Beacon to version 3.0.

 

C. Hacked Related Issue

In order to safeguard the Internet’s ecosystem and to protect the users’ rights and interests, Baidu released the “Operation Guide for Hacked Sites” to guide sites to investigate the hacking situation that happened in March 2018.

Hence, a hacked website is usually manifested by a large amount of gambling contents not published by this website, or the website page is redirected to the gambling page.

 

1. Particularly, the website contains a large number of gambling contents that are not published by the website.

 

2. Lastly, the Website page is redirecting to a gambling page.

 

When someone hacks your website, it indicates that there are serious security problems or loopholes within the website and search engines will not include or even display such gambling contents to search users. Therefore, when such a situation occurs on the website, you need to quickly discover and solve completely in time.

If you are facing any website problems or if you are planning to start Baidu SEO, it is also important to hire a SEO expert team like Sekkei Studio to bring your business to a higher level. Contact us now.

Pictures reference from Baidu search resource platform: https://ziyuan.baidu.com/college/documentinfo?id=2988