Headline to do this search, and the small trend behind it.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “ Dictionary sequence” (ID: zidianxulie ), the author Liu Chen.
The recent byte-hopping search business has caused some discussions in the industry, most of which regard byte hopping and Baidu competition as a major issue, and some similar to “the Internet is dead” and “search engine is dead” Such as the spring and sad autumn. Each has its own merits. I think that a company decides a business direction. It would not be a product based on a single idea or signal. I also have some thoughts on this issue. I will record it here and provide you with some new perspectives.
1 “Content Overlay”
I am involved in the Internet industry late, the concept of “content coverage”, I am not sure whether it was invented in recent years. But it has indeed become important in the content field in recent years.
Assume that each WeChat public account publishes content on the Baijia number synchronously, then Baidu’s content coverage on WeChat is 100%; if half of the WeChat public number is synchronized in the 100 number, it is 50%, not too Strict, generally the same.
At present, according to public data, the WeChat public number is at least 10 million, and the headline number is more than 1 million. According to CNNIC44, the number of websites in China is 5.18 million, and even between 2018 and 2019, there has been a continuous decline in the number of websites.
Everyone knows that the vast majority of our daily consumption information is not through the website, but through various “numbers” such as WeChat, Weibo, and headlines. The information that we “brushed” on a daily basis and the information that can be “searched” were split. According to this trend, it is not difficult to know that the coverage of “full network information” by Baidu search is continuing to decline.
It must be said that in the past few years, Baidu has made great efforts to make great efforts in the information flow + Baijia number ecology. This incident not only opened up the battlefield of information flow, but also gave the search a second breath. If there is no Baijia number, Baidu’s coverage of the entire network of consumer information is probably much lower than it is now.
So for the headline, it can be seen as the opposite of Baidu’s problem. Since the amount of information in the headline content ecology is increasing, and the proportion of useful information in the whole network is increasing, the value of doing search is getting bigger and bigger..
2 “long tail flow”
The Internet is a particularly prominent area of the “long tail effect.” This means that most of the time, traffic will be concentrated on a very small number of explosions, which is what we call “head” content.
In the information flow system, because the “concern” relationship is weakened, information distribution tends to concentrate on the head. This leads to the problem that if you can’t build an extra suitable consumption scenario outside of the recommended information flow, then this part of the valuable traffic can’t be tapped.
The importance of this issue is getting bigger as the content of the headline ecologically exists. For example, in order to write such an article, I might need to search the headlines for what I have done on search in the past few years, or to search for trends in the number of Chinese websites over the past 10 years. It is still more efficient to get this information through Baidu than through the headlines.
The need to search for unpopular content like this is unsatisfactory in an ecologically up-to-date content. Only when there is enough information accumulated in the system over time, the area of the “long tail” will change. It is big enough and considerable.
The content of the headline is the fifth year, and the situation is compelling. It is imperative to enlarge the long tail area by strengthening the search scene.
3
Finally, of course, there are commercial considerations.
The two scenarios of consumer recommendation content and active search content are completely different in business value. For example, the user clicked on a “cancer” related article in the information stream. This is just a simple phenomenon of content consumption. Most of the time there is no deeper meaning behind it. But what does it mean if users actively search for “cancer” related content?
Recommended scenarios, which simply implement the connection between users and information, and often have no next step; in the search scenario, users are more likely to drive the next real behavior by connecting information. This provides a larger and deeper commercial space. Baidu’s efficient liquidation machine is based on this logical relationship.
From the horizontal perspective, there is a limit on the content of the advertisements that can be carried by the information stream. It is as if we have a ceiling on the number of advertisements and the length of the insertions when we watch TV dramas. Unless it is a last resort, consuming user stickiness to increase advertising capacity is not worth the candle.
After several years of operation, the commercialization space in the headline information flow is definitely a process of constantly approaching the upper limit. Then ask the headline to come through other consumer scenarios.Break through this ceiling and find a new battlefield. Referring to Baidu’s business model, it is one of the best strategies for headlines.
Searching for the widening of this scene, whether in horizontal or vertical depth, can provide headlines with additional incremental business value.
4
In fact, when WeChat upgraded the search in the APP in the past few years, it also stimulated some discussions. In fact, a certain size (and a certain time) of the above, the development of their own independent search has long been the trend.
Let’s say a little further, now that you want to buy something online, will you search for goods through Baidu? Of course not, Taobao search in Taobao, Jingdong search in Jingdong, this is the most accurate and most convenient.
The Internet has split from a unified information system into a number of segregated “Walled Garden”, a discussion that has been going on for many years in public opinion.
Is it good or bad? All parties have their own set of arguments. However, from the perspective of commercial organizations, there is no choice but to follow the trend. At present, the trend of information and search “long-term must be divided” will continue to spread.