Chinese search engine SEO, local and international

 

Mostly, Chinese SEO is the same as Google or Bing.

• Chinese language content
• Chinese SEO components
  • Page title
  • Page description
  • Heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc)
• Sitemaps
• Robots
• Webmasters (called Zhanzhang in Chinese)
• Fast access to your internet content
• Local/dedicated domain name
• Local/dedicated IP address

The main differences are;

• All Chinese webmaster systems are only in the local Chinese language
• Local/dedicated IP address
• Political correctness
• Blocked internet content
• Baidu SERP (Search engine results page), e.g., Google Rich Cards
• Search engine tools, services and add-ons

This article is a beginner’s guide to Chinese search engine optimisation (SEO). You may require local Chinese support as you learn more and want to increase your internet content rankings.

There are four Chinese search engines and two overseas search engines, and you should aim to get a high ranking in the Chinese market.

 

 

The biggest Chinese search engine is Baidu. The newest is Shenma. Its growth is robust; it took almost 10% of the Chinese search engine market in 18 months.

Please see the Chinese search engine for more information on each search engine.

Chinese language Metadata

All search engines will only rank your content in the language it is written.  If your content is in English only, the Chinese search engine will rank your internet content in English.

A search engine;

• does not translate your internet content.
• only indexes the information it finds in your internet content.
• multi-language content will be indexed for each language.

e.g., If you are searching for “baby food”, the results will only contain the words “baby food” and not 婴儿食品. (Baby food in Chinese). If you have multi-language ready in your internet content, try searching in both languages in Google or Bing.

When you ask the Chinese search engines to index your internet content, think as you would with Google or Bing: What words will the Chinese user search for your product or service?   

In the “baby food” example, the Chinese consumer is likely to be looking for overseas baby food brands and could try searching for “baby food.” In this example, your SEO data will need the Chinese and English words for “baby food” to rank well in any Chinese search engine.

Type your “key search words” in a Chinese search engine. What, if any, is your ranking?

Please note:

• The Chinese language for search engines is Mandarin / simplified Chinese.
• English is the first international language of China. It is the foreign language taught in schools and colleges. This means over 100 million Chinese people are being taught English yearly. We recommend Chinese and English sites for the Chinese internet market. Please note: use English with American spelling, nouns and written grammar.

Here are the language options for your website;

• Do nothing – leave your website in your local language
• Add additional page(s) to your site in Chinese containing the key information and words
• Translate the key SEO data into Chinese on a copy of your internet content, including page titles, descriptions, heading tags, etc.
• Create SERP (Search Engine Result Page) in Chinese where available in Chinese search engine
• Translate your multimedia content
• Fully translate your internet content
• Create a new website for the Chinese market

For more information on their options, please see Chinese language on the internet.

Chinese SEO components

Chinese search engine SEO data, such as meta tags, titles, descriptions, headings, etc., are the same as those in Google or Bing.

Remember to change the language, region, etc, and meta tag data on page data if you have translated it or have a copy of your internet pages for the local Chinese market.

Chinese search engine sitemaps

The information is in the same format. If you have translated any information, ensure the sitemap's language information parameter is correctly set up.

Robots file

The information is in the same format. Again, do not forget to update any localisation changes

Chinese search engine Webmasters

Chinese search engines all have Webmasters like Google or Bing.

In China, Pingyin is the Webmaster is known as “Zhanzhang”.

The webmaster links are as follows;

• Baidu - https://ziyuan.baidu.com/
• Sogou - http://zhanzhang.sogou.com/
• 360 Search - http://zhanzhang.so.com/
• Shenma - http://zhanzhang.sm.cn/

Please note: All the web admins are in Chinese. Use the Chrome browser's translate option and work through the parameters. Many of the options are the same as those of Google or Bing.

Fast access to your internet content

Search engines will prioritise websites with fast access from China. This means locating your website in the Asia region or within China.

Chinese domain name

Please consider the following points

• Meaningful – creating a domain with the product or brand name
• Local – local domain name.CN /COM.CN.We believe that COM / NET works just as well.
• Language – the domain can be a Chinese name in simplified Chinese or Pinyin.

For more information. Please see the Chinese domain names

Local/dedicated IP address

China uses the IP address to determine the location and reliability of your website.

Chinese search engines do not recommend sharing IP addresses if the reliability of your internet content is confused with other content. I dedicated an IP address to show the stability of your presence on the internet.  I don’t understand what this means.

Please note: Chinese search engines, like international search engines, try to distinguish between good and poor sources of information. Knowing your website's fixed location helps greatly.

A local IP address will be allocated to your website when you host in Asia or China.

Political correctness

China has rules and regulations regarding content. If the content is politically incorrect, it is blocked in China and/or by the Chinese search engines. Make sure your website content is politically correct from the outset. Unblocking websites / IP addresses once blocked is very hard. 

For more information, please see Chinese ICP certification

Blocked website

Some international website content is blocked, and access time is slowed down. This includes international social media, Google, YouTube, etc. If you have blocked embedded content, your Chinese search engine ranking will be seriously affected.   

Baidu SERP (Search engine results page) e.g. Google Rich Cards

The Chinese search engine SERP allows you to add Chinese language to your SEO.

Review each Chinese search to see what options are available. Given its market share, Baidu and Shenma are recommended if you sell consumer products.

Search engine tools, services and add-ons

All Chinese search engines have additional functionality or services, e.g. Baidu Maps. Adding these services to your website will help with search engine ranking.

Look at each Chinese search engine offering and again start with Baidu and Shenma in your review.

WeChat, a search engine?

WeChat is a social media platform and belongs in a different paper.

WeChat calls itself an IT platform that contains all the services required to host your website, including its search engine for WeChat users.

Whilst WeChat is not called a search engine, given its business content, many Chinese consumers start their internet searches with WeChat.

WeChat, rank your WeChat account in the following sequences;

• WeChat account tittle
• Page headings
• Page contents

E.g. WeChat: Searching for "Travel / 旅行", which is a ubiquitous word, WeChat will only show results with "Travel / 旅行" in the account title. If you search for "London Tower Bridge," you will first see "London Tower Bridge" results in the Account Title, followed by results containing these words in the page headings/contents.

Therefore, the account name is significant.

Create a private WeChat account and try it in your local country.

Web page last modified: V3.3 - March 2025