In the river of this search engine, there are many sinkers.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Ireland” (ID: iresearch21cn), author Ann.
Recently, someone found that the headline search was quietly online.
There was a sudden jump in the information flow and short video field. It was regarded as a powerful challenger by the market. The headline searched on the line. Many people turned their attention to Baidu: Will the headline replace Baidu?
From the end of the last century, there have been more than a dozen search engines in China, but so far no search engine has been able to shake Baidu’s position. According to iResearch data, Baidu search still dominates the PC at the PC end. The monthly coverage is 45.38% of the market, 360 search accounts for 30.32%, Sogou search accounts for 13.16%, and other search engines account for no more than 10%. %.
Other data show that in the mobile search market in 2018, Baidu’s market share reached 62.2%, ranking first; Shenma search accounted for 22.3%, ranking second; Sogou search ranked third with 13.5%.
Reviewing the Chinese search engine market, you can see that this market is not without players, but most of these players are not really big at the end.
In June 1997, NetEase was established and launched a full Chinese search engine service.
In February 1998, Sohu was established and a Chinese search engine was published.
In February 1999, Sina launched the “SinaSearch” beta.
In September 1999, the Yahoo China website was launched.
In January 2000, Baidu was established.
In September 2000, Google added both simplified and traditional Chinese versions.
In August 2004, Sohu launched a Sogou search.
In March 2006, Tencent released SOSO (Soso).
In April 2006, Google China was formally established.
In December 2006, Netease launched a searchable beta.
In May 2009, Microsoft introduced Bing (Bing) search.
In March 2010, Google search exited the Chinese mainland market.
In February 2011, Pangu search, a search engine created by Xinhua News Agency and China Mobile, was launched.
2In June 011, an instant search was launched by People’s Search Network.
In August 2012, 360 launched 360 search.
In September 2013, Tencent announced that it would merge Soso into Sogou search.
In March 2014, Pangu search and instant search merged, and Chinese search was officially launched.
In April 2014, UC released the mobile search engine brand – Shenma Search.
In August 2019, the byte jumped to launch the headline search.
Chinese search engine is born
The search engine in China appeared at the turn of the century. At that time, the Internet was just introduced to China.
The earliest, three of the four major portals – Sohu, NetEase, and Sina – all started as search engines. However, at the time, their search engines belonged to the first generation of directory-based search engines, which is known as URL navigation. This search method cannot provide users with any search results. In the end, they all developed into portals.
In September 1999, Yahoo China website was officially opened. Although Yahoo was originally a directory-based search engine, it provided powerful search functions for Chinese Internet users in the first place, through its 14 categories of easy-to-use, manual classification. Simplified Chinese website directory search and later launched a powerful search engine, users can easily retrieve information on politics, economy, culture, technology, real estate, education, art, entertainment, sports and other aspects.
At the end of 1999, Li Yanhong, a patent inventor of superchain analysis and a Silicon Valley in the United States, saw the huge potential of the Chinese Internet and Chinese search engine service market, so he resolutely quit his high-paying job in Silicon Valley and carried his own search. The patented technology of the engine returned to China, and Baidu was founded on January 1, 2000.
In September 2000, Google added two versions of Simplified and Traditional Chinese, so the Chinese search market began in the “Three Kingdoms Period.”
Google and Baidu are second-generation search engines relative to the first-generation search engines of early portals. The second generation search engine relies on machine crawling, based on the hyperlink search based on web search, using a combination of search crawler and sorting algorithm, using keywords as the core to automatically retrieve, to achieve automatic acquisition and importance sorting of massive information. Greatly improved the retrieval efficiency in the digital age.
At the beginning of Baidu’s establishment, it provided a set of search technologies and tools for various Internet sites., not individual users. Baidu provides Chinese web information retrieval services for portals such as Sohu and Sina. It has quickly occupied 80% of China’s website search technology service market and has become the most important search technology provider.
However, unfortunately, during the period 2000-2001, the Internet ushered in the first bubble “crash”, numerous websites were closed, and many domain names became “dead links”, and portals were reluctant to spend The big price paid for the search service fee, despite the huge market, Baidu’s profit has become a problem.
At this time, Li Yanhong found that the “bidding ranking” model launched by Silicon Valley company Overture may become the commercialization path of search engines. Since then, Baidu’s “bidding ranking” mode has appeared. “Bid-ranking” is to ask customers to purchase keywords and bid, determine their ranking in the search results, and use contextual content analysis technology to simultaneously place ads on other search engines to share benefits with these partners. Under this model, Baidu’s business focus shifted from “to B” to “to C”. In August 2001, Baidu officially launched the independent search engine baidu.com to directly serve C-end users.
At this time, Google, which has become a mainstream search engine internationally, has launched Chinese search for one year. With its high-quality search content, Google has become the first choice of most Chinese netizens.
In order to compete with Google, Baidu launched a “Lightning Plan” internally. Li Yanhong once introduced this plan: It takes about 4 years for a mature search engine to grow to full maturity. Google was founded in 1997 and was accepted by most netizens by the end of 2000. While Baidu was established for two and a half years, it is still in a relatively dangerous situation, so it is necessary to speed up the pace of technological upgrading and improvement. To this end, Baidu set up a technical commando team headed by “Little Genius” thunder, to “let Baidu engine fully compete with Google in technology” within 9 months.
After that, Baidu has launched a series of products. In 2002, Baidu MP3 went online and attracted a lot of traffic. In 2003, the picture and news search business went online, Baidu Post Bar went online, and quickly gathered a lot of Chinese content; in 2004, Baidu acquired the navigation website hao123 to obtain a large number of traffic portals; in 2005, Baidu knew to go online and combined the interactive question and answer platform with the search business. In terms of promotion, Baidu draws on the effective Internet cafes in the online game industry. Even in some second- and third-tier cities, the browser homepage of Internet cafes has become Baidu search page.
Baidu’s strategy is obviously very successful. On June 8, 2003, the “China Computer Education News” held a public beta campaign called “Baidu VS Google” to let users vote for their own minds. Better search. In the end, 55% chose “Baidu is better than Google” and supported Goo.Only 35% of gle.
Baidu also received the acquisition intention of competitors while fighting with Google and Yahoo. Around 2003, Yahoo had sought to buy Baidu for $150 million. When Li Yanhong hesitated, Yahoo chose the Chinese Internet service company 3721 created by Zhou Hongyi. In 2004, Google’s think tank in China hoped to spend $2 billion. The price bid for Baidu, but Google management finally only gave a quote of 1.6 billion US dollars. Since then, Google has only acquired a portion of Baidu’s shares. At the time of Baidu’s latest round of $15 million in financing, Google invested $5 million.
In August 2004, Google was listed on the NASDAQ. In October, the two founders visited China and announced the “plan to enter China”. In July 2005, Kai-Fu Lee joined Google and served as the president of Google China, and began preparations for Google’s entry into China.
After a month, Baidu landed on NASDAQ in the US for listing. On August 5, 2005, Baidu listed, the issue price was set at 27 US dollars, the stock price has been arrogant since the opening, and the final closing price is fixed at 122.54 US dollars, becoming the most dazzling star in the global capital market of the year.
At this time, Yahoo China has changed. In August 2005, Yahoo China “selled” Alibaba. Yahoo headquarters announced the exchange of 40% of Alibaba’s common stock with a total of 640 million US dollars in cash, Yahoo China business and Taobao shares purchased from Softbank. At the same time, Zhou Hongyi, who led Yahoo China to achieve good results, announced his resignation as the president of Yahoo China.
After Yahoo China acquired 3721 in 2003, Zhou Hongyi became the president of Yahoo China. After taking office, Zhou Hongyi began to implement reforms on Yahoo China, promote the internationalization of Chinese Internet access, realize the localization of Yahoo search, and promote Yahoo! Under its leadership, Yahoo China successfully launched Yahoo’s only independent search portal “One Search”. At the same time, the “1G Free Email” and “Mail Alliance” markets were promoted. These changes were effective and achieved 4000 in the first year. Ten thousand dollars in revenue, with a profit of 10 million US dollars. By the end of 2004, Yahoo search had surpassed Google China to occupy the second position in the market, and its independent search site had the same share as Baidu.
However, the good times are not long, and Zhou Hongyi’s reform plan has not been supported by Yahoo’s headquarters. Yahoo headquarters asked China to search for more than Baidu in 2015, but did not provide any financial support, which led to the deterioration of relations between Zhou Hongyi and the headquarters. At the same time, Yahoo headquarters also intends to package Yahoo China to Alibaba, making the situation more complicated. After Yahoo China was acquired by Alibaba for 20 days, Zhou Hongyi left Yahoo China.
In addition, Sohu launched the third generation of Chinese search in August 2004.擎搜狗Search, intends to once again seize the search engine market, but a product did not slowly go to the center of the stage until a few years later.
In 2005, China’s search engine market was still in a three-pronged situation. Data showed that Baidu, Google, and Yahoo accounted for 37%, 23%, and 21%, respectively.
Google withdraws from China
As the value of search engines as an Internet portal emerges, Internet companies are accelerating their presence in the search engine space.
In March 2006, Tencent launched its search engine, SOSO.
In April 2006, Google officially established a Chinese subsidiary and launched the Chinese name “Google.”
In December 2006, Netease launched a searchable beta.
In 2006, although SOSO was launched, Tencent’s technology was not in place, and Google needed technical support for SOSO. Until 2009, SOSO replaced Google’s search engine and launched its own web search. engine.
In order to increase support for SOSO, in April 2010, Tencent announced the establishment of SOSO search division, it seems that it intends to find a world in the field of search engines, but the fact is cruel, for two years, SOSO still can not get up . In May 2012, Tencent announced the adjustment of the organizational structure of the group. The SOSO business was split and merged into the mobile internet business group and the technology engineering business group.
Tencent finally gave up its own search and turned to foreign investment. In September 2013, Tencent announced that it would invest USD 448 million in Sogou and merge its search business into Sogou’s existing business. Tencent will hold a 36.5% stake in the new Sogou, and the SOSO brand will disappear.
The same Netease search that was born in 2006 did not succeed. At the end of 2006, NetEase launched a searchable version of the search. Like Tencent, the original search service was provided by Google. Until July 2007, the search engine was officially replaced with its own search engine.
When Netease announced the launch of the search business, Ding Lei once went to Beijing to be the platform for the search for the conference, and regarded this project as an important milestone in the company’s development. In Netease, in addition to the game business, the search is also a Count the projects that Ding Lei personally paid attention to.
However, there is no way to do a search. According to insiders at the time, since the beginning of 2012, NetEase has begun to gradually reduce its investment. In August 2013, the company searched for cooperation with Qihoo, and 360 search provided technical support services for the search. Since then, Netease officially abandoned the competition in the general search field.
Tencent and Netease, twoNone of the companies that make games have succeeded in the search engine field.
In 2009, Microsoft also launched a search engine – Bing (Bing). Although this search engine ranks second in the international market, in China, Bing seems to be unacceptable and has been tepid. According to a third-party Statcounter data, as of December 2018, the global search engine market, Bing ranked second, with a share of 2.41%, far lower than the first Google’s 92.25%; in the Chinese market, Bing share ranked first Sixth, the proportion is 2.01%.
After Yahoo China “selled” Alibaba, it also went down. Although Ma Yun has made a bold statement: “In three years, in China, search is Yahoo, Yahoo is search.” However, due to business integration out of focus, team integration issues and the contradiction between Yahoo China and headquarters, Yahoo China failed to be in Ma Yun Strong in the sky.
In August 2013, Yahoo China issued an announcement to stop providing information and community services. The original team will focus on the spread of Alibaba Group’s public welfare business. At this point, Yahoo China has almost no business on the mainland.
In 2006, after Google established a subsidiary in China, it has been “not convinced.”
When Google first arrived in China, it was of a “smuggling” nature. It did not have its own ICP license. It was through the cooperation with the market, and the Google.cn domain name was run by the market. For a time, Google’s operations in China were accused of “undocumented employment”, which led to a sensational “license door” incident. Since then, when Li Kaifu attended the public event, the license incident was repeatedly mentioned by reporters.
In addition, Google is accused of being more meaningful than “meaning” in “localization.” The self-developed Google Pinyin input method was discovered shortly after it was found to plagiarize the Sogou vocabulary, and cooperate with Tianya Tianya Q&A, come on, imitate Baidu Billboard to launch Google Hot List, acquire website navigation station 265, Google almost completely copied Baidu’s products. Line, technology blogger Huo Tor described this situation as “Google Shanzhai Baidu.” Li Kaifu later expressed his predicament in Google China in “AI·Future.” “We have to develop a hard battle with our headquarters for every new function, which makes us slow and exhausted. Many Google China employees are tired of fighting the head office and are left in frustration.” p>
At the beginning of 2007, Google China broke out the “Map Gate” incident. Many netizens found that in the Google Maps product, the latest satellite image of Shenyang, China, was actually marked as a map of Japan when it invaded China, and there were things like Showa and Nikman everywhere. This has aroused great anger among Chinese netizens. In October of the same year, the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau Inspection Branch investigated Google China and found that it had problems in business tax, personal income tax, and option tax. The amount of tax evasion was 5 million yuan. In 2009, Google also caused “indecent words” due to pornographic content./p>
The headline as a challenger has made Tencent a headache. However, in the search field, many people think that the headline is currently difficult to shake Baidu’s position. After all, the technical challenge is still great, and, in this big river of search engines. There are quite a few sinkers.