Baidu changes have unexpected impact on Herdict traffic

Beginning in June, Herdict saw its traffic from Baidu, China’s leading search engine, drop to unprecedented lows. Although it does not appear that Herdict itself has been delisted at Baidu, the removal of other sites has impacted Herdict’s visitors from China.

Baidu has stopped returning results when searches for complete web addresses of blocked sites like “www.facebook.com” or “www.youtube.com” are entered (see below). Prior to June, Herdict would frequently appear in Baidu’s search results for these sites, which helped drive much of our traffic from China.

Without this traffic from Baidu, we need your help in continuing to get the word out about Herdict. When you come across a blocked site report it to Herdict:  thru the Reporter, thru the add-on (to report as you browse), or via email or twitter. Remember Herdict can track page-level blocking, so if you get an error page from Baidu, like the one above, report that too. Finally, spread the word about Herdict with your friends: tweet your reports from the Reporter, follow @herdict, and share Herdict’s data from the Explore pages.

About the Author: lmiyakawa

Laura Miyakawa is the Project Manager for Herdict. In this role, she directs the tactics and the long term strategy for the site. Prior to joining the Berkman Center, Laura worked with the Boston Consulting Group, developing strategies for high tech clients up and down the East coast. While at BCG, she had the opportunity to work in outback Australia on a Welfare Reform pilot. Recently, she worked as a commercialization associate at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where she handled all patenting and licensing decisions for the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. Laura holds bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, respectively.