Baidu SEO Ranking Factors Study
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 8:21 am
I had a chance to talk to Marcus Pentzek of Searchmetrics about their new Baidu ranking factors study. To an SEO nerd like me, it’s exciting to discuss how the data applies to real-world SEO campaigns.
As far as I know, as of now, this is the only Baidu-based correlation study out there.
I’ll share the study’s findings with you.
If you have 1.5 hours to read the study, download it on Searchmetrics’ site.
If you have 55 minutes, catch the full interview on YouTube.
If you only have 10 minutes, check out the tips below.
First, I should mention that the data does require some intuition malaysia number to interpret correctly, and I’d advise against focusing too much on the correlation scores. I found that this study is more useful for understanding which factors are common for webpages that rank in the top 10 search results on Baidu..
There’s also nothing wrong with using a .cn domain name. It can still be useful if you want to signal to users that your site is specifically tailored to the Chinese market.
2- LANGUAGE TAGS ARE NOT NECESSARY FOR BAIDU.
Missing or erroneous language tags don’t seem to make a difference.
Still, Bing (and perhaps other search engines) may use language tags, so it’s still useful to include them if you can.
3- PUT EXACT-MATCH KEYWORDS IN TITLES AND HEADERS, BUT YOU DON’T NEED THEM IN THE BODY OR META DESCRIPTION.
When SEOers say “keyword” they are actually referring to a series of words together, such as “上海室内滑雪” (Shanghai indoor skiing). Notice that in Chinese, there’s no space between the words.
In the image below, you can see a search result with parts of the keyword coloured red. Sometimes the full keyword appears, and sometimes just individual words.
Using that exact keyword too many times will probably hurt the results. If you want a page to rank well for “Shanghai indoor skiing,” you should
include “Shanghai indoor skiing” in the title and header;
include the individual words within the body content, such as “Shanghai”, “indoor “and “skiing”, or even “indoor skiing,” and
DO NOT put “Shanghai indoor skiing” over and over again across the page.
As far as I know, as of now, this is the only Baidu-based correlation study out there.
I’ll share the study’s findings with you.
If you have 1.5 hours to read the study, download it on Searchmetrics’ site.
If you have 55 minutes, catch the full interview on YouTube.
If you only have 10 minutes, check out the tips below.
First, I should mention that the data does require some intuition malaysia number to interpret correctly, and I’d advise against focusing too much on the correlation scores. I found that this study is more useful for understanding which factors are common for webpages that rank in the top 10 search results on Baidu..
There’s also nothing wrong with using a .cn domain name. It can still be useful if you want to signal to users that your site is specifically tailored to the Chinese market.
2- LANGUAGE TAGS ARE NOT NECESSARY FOR BAIDU.
Missing or erroneous language tags don’t seem to make a difference.
Still, Bing (and perhaps other search engines) may use language tags, so it’s still useful to include them if you can.
3- PUT EXACT-MATCH KEYWORDS IN TITLES AND HEADERS, BUT YOU DON’T NEED THEM IN THE BODY OR META DESCRIPTION.
When SEOers say “keyword” they are actually referring to a series of words together, such as “上海室内滑雪” (Shanghai indoor skiing). Notice that in Chinese, there’s no space between the words.
In the image below, you can see a search result with parts of the keyword coloured red. Sometimes the full keyword appears, and sometimes just individual words.
Using that exact keyword too many times will probably hurt the results. If you want a page to rank well for “Shanghai indoor skiing,” you should
include “Shanghai indoor skiing” in the title and header;
include the individual words within the body content, such as “Shanghai”, “indoor “and “skiing”, or even “indoor skiing,” and
DO NOT put “Shanghai indoor skiing” over and over again across the page.