REKURSIVE BLOG

Baidu Jingjia: Baidu’s equivalent of Google AdWords

Jing Jia is Baidu’s advertising product – their homepage is http://jingjia.baidu.com/ (warning: in Chinese; there’s currently no English translation). Like Google Adwords, Jingjia lets advertisers bid on keywords and uses the Pay-Per-Click model: advertisers only pay when users click on their ads in search results. Jingjia also lets advertisers define targeted geographic areas and daily spending limits.

However one big difference between Baidu Jingjia and Google AdWords is the presentation of ads in search results: Baidu Jingjia mixes ads into organic search results, rendering ads in the same font, colors and appearance as organic search results. The only way to tell if a search result is organic or paid is by looking at the hyperlink URLs - paid results undergo a Baidu redirect, probably to track click throughs. Most Baidu search users will not notice the difference between organic and paid search results. Contrast that with Google, which prominently highlights ads (with a red background) and mark them clearly with the label “Sponsored Links”.

Baidu also has another advertising product called Huo Bao Di Dai, which roughly translates to “Hot-Zone”. These are ads that appear on the right side of the search results page. Unlike Jingjia, Hot-Zone does not follow a Pay-Per-Click model. Advertisers pay Baidu a fixed fee to display ads for a fixed period of time – this is regardless of the number of actual click throughs or actual ad impressions.

Here’s a screenshot that compares Google Ads and Baidu Ads side by side in search results: