Baidu, Sina Weibo, and other Chinese websites have grown to become quite popular in the mainland, due to the heightened restrictions enforced by the government on the netizens.
Unlike other regions in the world, where internet access to particular websites are often loosely regulated by the authorities, China is reportedly very serious when it comes to possible threats to its internet infrastructure and bans websites that goes against its established rules.
People who have visited the country and connected to the internet will immediately notice that Google and its other services are blocked, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Instead of Google, locals use Baidu, which apparently works just as well as Google and is a search engine approved by the government.
The Chinese also have other options, such as 360 Search and Sogou, but Baidu still dominates the rankings and over 60 percent of the search engine market. However, critics noted that it aggressively tries to copy Google albeit with slight differences.
A quick look at the rankings provided by Alexa Internet (an online analytics company that specializes in commercial web traffic, which is owned by Amazon) shows that Baidu is one of the top 10 of the world's most popular websites.
It might not immediately seem important for regular web users, but industry analysts believe otherwise. Professionals that work closely with SEO observed that searches made on Baidu that were in English, are redirected back to Bing. The findings are potentially beneficial for Bing and SEO specialists that rely on the platform.
Here's a quick look at some of the interesting facts about Baidu, which we bet you didn't know till know.
