Google Search and the majority of the Google ecosystem is unreachable in mainland China at the date of writing. The Chinese search engine landscape is led by Baidu with a majority market share, followed by Bing (China), Haosou (360 Search), Yandex and Sogou. 

In this beginner’s guide, we delve into the five most popular search engines in China,exploring their features and how you can improve your website’s visibility in China.

Chinese Search Engines 2025 Market Share 

Across all devices, the market share percentages for China’s top search engines as of June 2025 are:

Baidu - 50.7%

Bing - 24.2%

Haosou - 17.0%

Yandex - 4.3%

Sogou - 1.7%

Google - 1.4%

Market share of search engines in China June 2025

But what’s the difference between all of these? 

Features of the Top Search Engines in China

Baidu

Baidu remains China’s leading search engine with over half of all-device queries at the time of writing. Baidu has a mobile-first app ecosystem, including Maps and mini-programs, which keeps users inside Baidu properties.

If you’re looking to rank in Baidu search, Baidu tends to favor sites that:

Load quickly

Are mobile-first

Have fresh, high-quality and relevant content

Prioritize user experience

Are localized (including Simplified Chinese language and/or Chinese domain)

Have high engagement

Note: Chinafy helps your site load fast and fully for visitors in China and automatically pushes your URLs to Baidu.

Read more about how to rank on Baidu

Bing (China)

Bing is popular on desktop in China, with 41% share, due to its default position on Windows. It handles bilingual (English - Chinese) queries better than Baidu according to users. While there’s limited information online about how to rank well on Bing in China, its global counterpart typically follows traditional SEO rules such as favouring high-quality content, relevant keywords and content freshness.

Haosou (360 Search)

Haosou rides the 360 Brower’s install base, giving it 27% of queries on desktop. 360 is an internet security company in China and so Haosou search engine inherits the company’s cloud-based reputation system that flags or blocks phishing and malware links directly in the SERP.

Sogou

Sogou uses Sogou Pinyin keyboard which allows users to type Chinese characters by inputting the pronunciation (Pinyin). Sogou powers WeChat and QQ in-app searches, so any WeChat article, Official Account, or Mini-Program you publish is automatically indexed and surfaced inside both WeChat itself and Sogou’s public web portal.

Yandex

Yandex is actually a Russian search engine but now appears in up to 6% of China’s mobile searches, particularly along the Sin-Russian trade corridor and among expats using imported Android devices.

Shenma

Shenma is China’s mobile-commerce search engine, bundled as the default in UC Browser. It focuses on app, product, and shopping results, funnelling traffic straight to Taobao, T-Mall, and Alipay checkout flows.

How AI is re-shaping China’s search engines (2024 – 2025)

Baidu – In April 2025 Baidu released its ERNIE 4.5 multimodal model and the reasoning model ERNIE X1, then began weaving both into Baidu Search while dropping the paywall on Ernie Bot. Users now see richer, on-page answer boxes, code snippets, and long-form summaries generated on the fly, akin to Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) but tuned for Chinese queries.

Haosou (360 Search) – In November 2024, 360 launched Nano Search, a multimodal interface that lets people “search, learn, write, and create” in one place. Results can be re-written, expanded into articles, or turned into short videos without ever leaving the SERP, positioning Haosou as the “safe-but-creative” search choice.

Bing (China) – Throughout 2024, Microsoft rolled out Bing Generative Search to mainland Chinese users. The feature adds AI-written answer summaries at the top of results pages like Google AI Overviews and a refreshed layout that still surfaces traditional links alongside the generative block.

DeepSeek and Tencent / Baidu – Since February 2025, Weixin (domestic-only WeChat) and Baidu have been beta-testing DeepSeek-R1 responses directly inside their search bars.

Optimizing websites for search engines in China

Optimizing a website for any search engine in China should start with its performance. If your website faces performance issues and isn’t easily accessible in China, it’s less likely to rank well and visitors are more likely to bounce if there are loading or functionality issues.

Many global websites face performance issues in China because China’s internet infrastructure operates through a small number of state-affiliated ISPs with limited international interconnectivity and strict network controls. In addition to the unpredictable latency caused by infrastructure, many third-party services are also slow to load or won’t load at all in China.

Read more on why websites don't work in China

This is where Chinafy comes in. Chinafy does not make officially inaccessible websites available. However, most websites aren’t officially inaccessible but technically inaccessible instead. Chinafy can then optimize those websites according to best practices for China visitors.

Chinafy can help you with your China SEO strategy by:

Accelerating website speed: Chinafy can optimize your site’s content delivery for China by resolving infrastructure and code-based issues that commonly slow down sites when they’re accessed from China.

Handling incompatible third-party resources: many external resources (like Google APIs) are blocked in China, leading to broken elements on your site. Chinafy automatically detects and replaces these resources with China-compatible alternatives.

Improving mobile performance: in the same way we accelerate your website speed, Chinafy’s rule-based optimizations also improve mobile site speed and responsiveness, which is good for both user experience and SEO rankings on Baidu.

Auto-pushing your URLs to Baidu: you don’t need to worry about how to index your site on Baidu, and instead Chinafy does this for you automatically for any of the URLs you choose to include in the Chinafy-version of your site.

Connecting you with China SEO specialists: Chinafy works with partners who can help you with your China marketing strategy beyond website optimization.

Read more about How Chinafy works.

Request a before-and-after Chinafy test today to see how Chinafy could improve your website speed and search engine visibility in China.