Baidu Changes Designation on Paid Search Results to 'Commercial Promotion'
Marbridge Consulting, 5/19/16
Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), China's dominant search engine operator, has changed the text-based designation that appears in each of its paid search results, adding the word "shangye" (literally "commercial") in front of the previous designation of "tuiguang" ("promotion/marketing/recommendation"). The updated designation, "shangye tuiguang" ("commercial promotion") appears towards the right side of the last line of ad text in both Baidu's PC and mobile search platforms.
Earlier this month, Baidu announced that by May 31 it would implement six corrective measures in response to new requirements imposed by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) following the latter's investigation of the search giant's business practices in the online healthcare advertising sector.
Among the six measures required by CAC, Baidu has pledged to limit the number of paid search results to less than 30% of total search results per page. However, conducting a search for the Chinese-language equivalent of "wealth management" today, Marbridge found that Baidu's PC platform yielded 18 left-side results in the first page, of which the first 8 (i.e. 44% of left-hand results) were all ads. In addition, a section on the right-hand side of the page also designated with the words "shangye tuiguang" displayed 8 ads (the top of the section displays the words "shangye tuiguang," but, unlike the left-side ad results, the right-side ads are not each individually tagged as ads). Conducting the same search via Baidu's mobile search platform yielded 15 results, of which 5 results (top 3, one mid-way, and one at bottom) were ads. As we have discussed earlier, one way that Baidu could ensure it complies with this particular corrective measure before the May 31 deadline is to simply increase the number of organic search results (i.e. unpaid, natural results) at the bottom of each page.
Keywords: Internet online healthcare Baidu mobile search BIDU Cyberspace Administration of China online search search advertising
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