Getting a website indexed in Baidu (for Chinese Mainland Websites only)

Introduction

If your audience is in China, Baidu is usually the search engine that matters most. The first goal is simple, make sure Baidu can find your pages, understand your site, and start adding your pages to its search results.

The Baidu equivalent of Google Search Console is Baidu Search Resource Platform. This is where you verify you own the site, submit your sitemap, submit important pages, and check for crawl or indexing problems. (ziyuan.baidu.com)

What you need before you start

You will need:

1. A Baidu account to log in
2. Access to the website, so you can add a verification file or a meta tag

Step by step, the basics that make the biggest difference

Step 1, Add your website and verify ownership

This tells Baidu you control the website and unlocks the tools.

1. Go to Baidu Search Resource Platform Site Management
   https://ziyuan.baidu.com/site/index (ziyuan.baidu.com)
2. Add your website
3. Verify ownership, usually by adding a meta tag to the home page, or uploading a verification file to the site root

Think of this like showing your ID at the door, without it you cannot access the useful controls.

Step 2, Submit your sitemap

A sitemap is like a contents page for your website, it helps Baidu discover your pages faster.

1. Go to the Standard Indexing, Sitemap area
   https://ziyuan.baidu.com/sitemap/index (ziyuan.baidu.com)
2. Add your sitemap URL and submit

Step 3, Submit a short list of important pages directly

This is like tapping Baidu on the shoulder and saying, these are the pages we really want you to look at first.

1. Go to the Link Submission tool
   https://ziyuan.baidu.com/sitesubmit (ziyuan.baidu.com)
2. Submit a small set of priority URLs, for example:
   • Home page
   • Main category or hub pages
   • Key commercial pages, for example exhibitor information, visitor information, ticket pages
   • Any brand new pages you have published recently

Baidu is clear that submission helps it discover URLs faster, but it does not guarantee every submitted page will be included, so this works best alongside a good sitemap and a crawlable site. (ziyuan.baidu.com)

Step 4, If you publish regularly, set up automated URL pushing

If your site adds or updates content often, for example news, speakers, exhibitors, blog posts, automated submission is worth doing. It reduces manual work and can speed up discovery.

Inside Baidu Search Resource Platform, look for the options related to active push, API push, or automatic submission within the same indexing area where sitemap and manual submission live. (ziyuan.baidu.com)

Conclusion

To get started with Baidu SEO, focus on the boring basics that unlock everything else, verify the site in Baidu Search Resource Platform, submit a sitemap, submit a handful of priority pages, and then monitor what happens.

Once Baidu is crawling and indexing consistently, you can move on to deeper optimisation like content quality, internal linking, and keyword targeting.