In December 2008, Baidu announced the launch of the Fengchao system to replace the criticized bidding system. On December 1, 2009, Baidu officially launched the professional version of the Fengchao system for search promotion. CCTV's financial channel reported that a journalist conducted an experiment using two fictitious companies and found that the "Fengchao Search Promotion System," or "promotion links," essentially still determines the ranking of search results based on the amount bid, but is less transparent and has many issues, including inflated estimated quotes, enforced spending limits, and well-known trademarks being used as keywords by others...
A month's budget used up in one day, who tampered with it?
Mr. Liu, the owner of a bronze door and window company in Beijing, sued Baidu this year. The reason was that as a long-time customer of Baidu promotion links, he discovered something strange: the 2000 yuan he deposited into his promotion account the day before was completely used up in less than 24 hours! As a long-time Baidu promotion customer, he was well aware of his normal click volume, and this amount should last at least a month. Initially, he suspected malicious clicks from competitors were causing him to spend more, but upon checking the backend, he found that he had originally set only four keywords, which inexplicably turned into more than thirty, even including irrelevant copper wires. Mr. Liu negotiated with Baidu, but their attitude was, "This is how it is, no refunds."
In a fit of anger, Mr. Liu filed a lawsuit against Baidu in the Beijing Haidian District People's Court, and on the day of the hearing, Baidu's lawyer refunded him the money.
But Mr. Liu still couldn't understand: who created these thirty or forty keywords for him overnight?
E-commerce websites unite against Baidu
On March 18, 2011, Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing announced on his Weibo: "Starting April 1, Dangdang will stop advertising and search placements on Baidu."
On March 24, JD.com CEO Liu Qiangdong revealed on Weibo: "We are cutting our advertising budget by 50% for 2011." The reason is simple: the crazy rise in advertising costs has completely lost its cost-effectiveness. And Baidu is the main advertising platform for JD.com.
On March 25, Dunhuang.com CEO Wang Shutong stated that they had basically stopped advertising on Baidu's search engine in 2010;
Subsequently, Newegg CEO Gu Jianxing also publicly stated that the company had stopped Baidu advertising on February 16.
On April 8, 2011, JD.com CEO Liu Qiangdong said on Weibo: "I have many good friends at Baidu's senior management! I have no intention of attacking Baidu, but I am very worried that Robin has been blinded by wealth and market value, neglecting the serious corporate ethics and values issues behind the temporary glory, making it difficult for the company to last! What I can do is: withdraw the ads as soon as possible!"
On March 28, 2011, during the IT Leaders Summit in Shenzhen, Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma said on site: "If I were to run a search engine, I would devote myself to it regardless of profit, striving for authenticity. The goal is not to defeat Baidu, but to make Baidu lose sleep, so that the experience of netizens across the country would be better."
In response to Jack Ma, Baidu Group CEO Robin Li, sitting next to him, replied: "Actually, this is a great opportunity for me to clarify that we do not rank based on who pays more; if we really did that, no one would use Baidu in the future."
Users feel "like a bottomless pit"
On December 1, 2009, Baidu launched the professional version of the Fengchao system for search promotion to replace the criticized bidding ranking system. What is the difference between the Fengchao system and the bidding ranking? Simply put, the previous bidding ranking system only recognized money; whoever bid higher got the better promotion position, and the maximum price for each keyword could be checked at any time. If one wanted to rank first, they only needed to bid more than the current first place. The current Fengchao system, however, is much more complex. According to Baidu, the position and form of the promotional content will be determined by the Fengchao system based on many factors such as relevance and user demand satisfaction, and it claims that the Fengchao system will save companies more money compared to the bidding ranking system.
So, what is the customer's experience after transitioning from bidding ranking to the Fengchao system?
A public relations person from a company that wished to remain anonymous told reporters that their company had been advertising on Baidu since 2004 and had experienced the transition from bidding ranking to the Fengchao system. From previously bidding 5 yuan per click to now bidding 15 yuan per click, her biggest feeling is that you now have to spend more effort and more money because this is still a form of bidding, only now it is opaque. She had tried every possible way to optimize and improve the so-called quality score, even copying others' websites, but still couldn't rank at the top, ultimately having to increase her bid. Her feeling is that it is like a bottomless pit.
Reporter's firsthand experience: What really determines search ranking
To experience the "rules" of promotion links, a financial channel reporter first fabricated two fictitious machinery companies. The reporter, using false materials, successfully registered two promotion accounts in the names of these companies at Baidu's Beijing branch and Baidu's Hebei marketing center, becoming promotion link customers. Logging into the backends of both accounts, the reporter set the keywords, ideas, and other related content to be exactly the same. Under the keyword "CNC drilling machine," both websites set the bid per click to be the same. When clicking on the search results, one company ranked first while the other ranked third. With both companies set up identically, what criteria did Baidu use to determine their rankings?
According to staff from Baidu's Hebei marketing center, the search ranking of keywords is determined by the quality score of the website and the bid amount, and they gave an example: for the term "CNC drilling machine," if someone has a quality score of one star, even if they bid 100 yuan, they will not rank first. If you have a three-star quality score, you might rank third with a bid of less than 6 yuan.
Description and creativity refer to the design and product descriptions of one's own website, and many parameters are collectively referred to by Baidu as quality score. On the surface, emphasizing quality score rather than solely determining rankings based on bid amounts is the biggest difference between Baidu's Fengchao system and the previous bidding ranking.
But is that really the case?
The salesperson from Baidu's Hebei marketing center helped the reporter optimize the website of Shijiazhuang Longxiang Company, raising its quality score from one star to the highest three stars, and indeed, the ranking of Shijiazhuang Longxiang Company improved by one position.
However, the reporter then conducted another experiment, modifying the click bid of Beijing Baojian Company, which was ranked third and had not undergone any optimization. As a result, with just an additional one yuan, Baojian Company pushed down Longxiang Company, which had a quality score of three stars, while at that time, Baojian Company's quality score was only one star.
Immediately after, the reporter raised Baojian Company's bid by another 50 cents, and it suddenly climbed to the first position in the search results. It seems that the so-called quality score indicators are all illusory; to improve rankings, the main factor still depends on who bids higher.
In the program, Baidu's customer service personnel also candidly told the inquiring reporter over the phone, "This is just bidding ranking. The difference from the previous bidding ranking is that in the past, you could see other customers' bids; now you cannot see other customers' bids. If your account's quality score is relatively low, optimizing it can help improve your ranking, but the main factor is still your bid."
Through various experiences, the reporter found that the statement "Baidu does not rank based on who pays more" needs to be questioned. The current Fengchao system still primarily considers price as the main indicator, while other rules are extremely opaque, essentially making it Baidu's domain where Baidu calls the shots.
Estimated system reports inflated prices, spending limits are breached
If one wants to rank first without seeing others' bids, how should they bid?
In each account's operation backend, Baidu provides customers with an estimated system. The reporter used it for estimation, and the result showed that for the keyword "CNC drilling machine," a bid of 36 yuan per click was needed to possibly rank first; entering a bid of 10 yuan showed that this price would rank 18th or lower.
However, when the reporter tried bidding 10 yuan and clicked search, the result showed that their promotional website was not ranked 18th but had already reached the first position!
The reporter continued to lower the bid and found that to rank first, the actual bid only needed to be 6.4 yuan. In other words, if one were to bid according to Baidu's estimated system to rank first, they would unnecessarily spend an extra 29.4 yuan per click.
In response, Baidu staff in Beijing explained: "The estimation tool only considers the bidding issue; it does not take into account other conditions of the account, such as our creative additions, so the estimation tool can only serve as a reference."
The reporter also noticed that in Baidu's Fengchao backend system, there is a setting for spending limits to help customers manage their funds. According to Baidu's Hebei staff, this function is "automatically generated; for example, if you set a limit of 200 yuan, once you spend 200, all keywords and promotional information will automatically go offline, and you won't need to spend any more. Even one cent over 200 will stop."
However, the reporter found in the test account of Beijing Baojian Company that on August 5, 2011, although a spending limit of 500 yuan was set, nearly 513 yuan in expenses were incurred. Baidu's after-sales service explained that after going offline each day, there is a refreshing time during which there will be corresponding spending, which is a system setting that cannot be changed. When the reporter questioned this as forced spending, the staff said to please understand that there must be a refreshing time.
No limits on keywords, easy to ride on famous brands
The reporter also found that Baidu's settings for keyword selection are almost unrestricted, including many well-known trademark names. The fictitious Baojian Company registered by the reporter is a machinery company, but when using the world-famous "Quanjude" as its promotional keyword, it was easily approved and ranked first in the right-side promotion link column on the homepage. The reporter continued to apply for promotional keywords using registered trademarks of several well-known companies, and similarly faced no obstacles.
Selling others' well-known trademarks as keywords to all companies paying for promotion links results in what? Besides allowing some promotional clients to easily "ride on famous brands," it also causes many companies to find that when searching for their full company name as a keyword, they often discover that the first result is actually a competitor. When the reporter entered "McDonald's" in Baidu's search bar, the first result was surprisingly KFC!
And for companies wanting to change this embarrassing situation, the only way is to also join Baidu's promotion links and bid higher to compete for the keywords that originally belonged to them.
Users dare not voice their anger, what are they concerned about?
During interviews, CCTV's financial channel reporters also discovered a strange phenomenon: many companies are dissatisfied with Baidu promotion links, including several well-known companies. Privately, executives and public relations personnel from these companies expressed their grievances to reporters, criticizing Baidu's search promotion system, but ultimately requested not to go public, not to use their names in reports, and those who agreed to use their names requested to have their company names and avatars concealed. Why is that? What are they concerned about?
Mr. Wang Tong, who has been engaged in search engine optimization business and research for many years, candidly told reporters: "Many people are afraid of Baidu for a simple reason; for example, many clients, including myself, if I write an article judging Baidu, Baidu will immediately block my website from search records and delete all my sites."
Wang Tong shared a personal experience with the reporter.
Wang Tong: Once, I wrote an article titled "Baidu's Absurdity," criticizing some of Baidu's shortcomings and actually giving suggestions to Baidu. I believe that a big company should have a broad mind; when someone gives you suggestions that are good for you, it helps you improve. At that time, Baidu's marketing director immediately found me online and asked me to delete the article. He said if I deleted it, he would rank all my websites first. I told him I didn't need to delete it; I was already ranked first. Then he said if I didn't delete it, he would block all my websites. In the end, I didn't delete it; I wrote the article objectively, and I didn't care if he blocked me. He blocked all three of my websites. For example, my website used to rank first for SEO searches, and I would definitely rank first for e-commerce searches. When he manually processed these technical issues, he cleared my websites from Baidu, and when searched, I couldn't be found at all, or I was completely unranked. This is Baidu's blocking. In this way, I used to bring a lot of traffic to my website by ranking high, but after his blocking, my online traffic was completely gone. I was very curious at the time, and I called Baidu's technical department. What did Baidu's technical department respond? They said it was a program error. I asked how could the error only occur on my three websites? Later, this matter just ended without resolution.
The internet is a special industry that permeates all levels of society. If such issues are not resolved quickly, it will have a negative impact on the entire internet industry in our country, hinder the construction of a trustworthy and healthy market environment for society, and affect the overall integrity of society. With promotion links becoming Baidu's largest source of profit, it is unrealistic to let Baidu manage itself; what is needed is a set of systems and legal constraints. As the main entry point of the internet, search engines naturally connect users, clients, content providers, and alliance partners in an ecological chain, bearing the function of guiding information and providing selection guidelines. Therefore, it is even more necessary to uphold a moral requirement of fairness, equality, and integrity. Establishing values is more important than pursuing commercial interests.
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