Baidu to launch in Europe?

Posted 06 June 2007 14:41pm by Graham Charlton with 1 comment

Baidu, China's biggest search engine, is reportedly planning to take on rival Google in the European market, with the company expected to launch a European version of its search engine.

Baidu has so far held off competition from Google to remain the biggest search player in China - it has 58% market share, compared with Google's 17%.

It recently entered Japan and was expected to expand further in the Asian market, but the Telegraph is reporting that it plans to announce a European launch later this month.  

But with Google so dominant, Baidu will find it difficult to make inroads in Europe, as its success so far is based on its expertise in Chinese language search and the size of China's internet audience.

It displays results differently to Google, ranking search listings according to amounts paid, and mixing paid search results in with organic listings.

A recent study also raised concerns over Baidu's attitude towards the issue of click fraud, with advertisers believing that 34% of all clicks on Baidu's paid links are fraudulent.