August 09
Client Alleges Baidu Search Fraud
Has Google become everybody's whipping boy since it unceremoniously caved in to a certain powerful government? Well, its top Chinese rival isn't doing so hot lately either. Baidu, who claims 46.5% of the domestic search market in 2005 (as compared with Google's 26.9%), has been implicated in some scandals lately. There is the flash sacking of its entire Corporate Software Service Department about a month ago (clean your desks and get the hell out of here in three hours, and don't even dream about all the stock options we promised you), and now we see this.
This photo pretty much sums up the situation. According to this post at the Reporters' Home BBS, representatives from a corporate client of Baidu's paid search ranking service protested in front of the search engine's office at noon on August 4, sporting banners claiming that Baidu cheated them out of millions by artificially buoying traffic to their Web site. Smartly enough, the protest message was bilingual.
The client, an obscure cancer research clinic (sounds like a shady character itself), says in a statement that they inked a contract with Baidu in early 2003. (From Baidu's vaguely-worded intro to this service on its Web site the idea of the service is that business clients bid for their rankings in searches on certain key words by netizens. Those that pay more ranks higher up in search results and have more chances of getting clicks, hence business, from potential customers. They also pay Baidu for each visit resulting from such a search.) The clinic says it has spent millions on this service since then, and clicks on their Web site have indeed grown dozens-fold. But actually business never picked up as a result of more Web traffic. The clinic hired outside help and found out that up to 70% of the traffic actually came from cpro.baidu.com. Rings a bell? They concluded that Baidu artificially bloats traffic to their sites in order to collect more fees.
Baidu security guards eventually drove the protesters away, and no real legal disputes seem to have materialized out of this farce so far, despite the clinic's threats. But do note that paid searches are Baidu's lifeline, its main revenue source.
I never liked Baidu much. Google presents a far superior searching experience than Baidu in almost every way, sometimes even in searching Chinese language content -- not that I am trying to promote anybody. In terms of the Internet I don't really give a damn to the "protect domestic brands" mentality. Google, or course, has also allegedly engaged in similar fraudulent business practice. The thing is, paid search in itself is an unethical business. How can you expect the search engines -- monopolistic or duopolistic -- and their clients not to screw each other? And eventually, not to screw the ordinary Web customers?
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