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Is Baidu a copycat? Robin Li explains the biggest difference between Baidu and Google

Chinese search engine Baidu has been the king of China’s search game for a long time, since well before Google decided to leave the Chinese market. But given the similarities between their services and, especially in the early days, their aesthetic, comparisons between Baidu and Google are common. In the foreign press, Baidu is often called the “Chinese Google,” or flat-out accused of being a Google copycat. But how does Baidu founder and CEO Robin Li see the differences between his company and the American search behemoth? He answered that question at a Baidu Q&A session several months ago, the transcript of which has just been released.

Here’s what he said (our translation): You can talk about the difference between Baidu and Google in two different stages. In the early days when the focus was PC-based search, the main thing we did [differently] was UGC, or User Generated Content. This is a bit different from the American understanding of “search”: in our development phase we did not just passively index content already on the web. Instead we targeted Chinese users to create new content. For example Baidu Tieba, the largest Chinese-language forums, with nearly 100 million daily active users, they’ve been commenting [on Baidu Tieba] since December of 2003. Every comment that came in was indexed and searched by Baidu. A bit later on Baidu Knows, Baidu Wiki, and other services all came from this concept. We allowed our users to create portals and to create content, and then used search technology to index it. That was the biggest difference between Baidu’s approach and Google’s during Baidu’s development in the PC search era. In the mobile search era, there are huge differences between Baidu and Google [services], and even bigger differences in terms of philosophy. Google has spent more energy on the Android ecosystem, how to create more Android apps, and how to create industries that might become massive in 20 years, like driverless cars, health-focused hardware…they’re thinking about that kind of thing. For Baidu, it’s about not only connecting information but also connecting services. For example if you open Baidu and input “cinema,” it will tell you what theaters are within 1.1 km of you, what time the movies showing start, what seats are available to buy, and even let you pick a seat and pay directly. A whole series of actions can all be done from within Baidu [Search]. Google hasn’t done this kind of thing. They don’t see it as something they do: ‘we’ll index whatever’s available on the web for you and that’s enough.’ In our eyes, China’s web users don’t care about whether or not these services are Baidu’s responsibility, they just care about whether they can get what they want here [in our search]. In the early days I had a relatively hard time accepting this mindset. For example, if someone searched for something on Baidu but didn’t search well and got scammed [on a site that popped up in the results], that information wasn’t Baidu’s. I just indexed it, and at first my thinking was: that’s not my problem. But later we came to realize that if other people see it as your your problem, then it’s your problem, and you need to find a way to solve it. So we made a safety guarantee plan, sort of like insurance, so that if you’re scammed by some site you found in Baidu’s search, although Baidu didn’t scam you we will still compensate you. This concept slowly became: the facts [of a search] are not important, what’s important is what people think, and if people think something you’ve got to find a way to resolve it. In the mobile era, we found that when people searched “cinema”, their ultimate goal wasn’t just to see what movies were out, it was to actually go to the theater and watch a movie. So we thought of a way to satisfy them. We don’t want users to just be getting information here, we want them to get the services [that they’re actually looking for], as that is more convenient for them. Luckily China’s economic development has been quick, so traditional industries are very open and willing to work with internet companies. That’s how we’re able to integrate our IT system with movie theaters. That’s the biggest difference between us and Google in the mobile era.