Baidu used to be one of the giants of the Chinese Internet (one of the BAT), known for its powerful search engine technology and massive search results. However, in recent years, Baidu's development has fallen into a bottleneck, its search market share has been eroded (Douyin, WeChat, Xiaohongshu and other super head apps), revenue growth has become increasingly weak, and the B in BAT has also become Bytedance (ByteDance). The reason for this is that Baidu's over-commercialization is undoubtedly one of the important factors.
In pursuit of profits, Baidu inserts a lot of ads into search results, which seriously affects the user experience. According to statistics, the proportion of advertisements on Baidu's homepage has exceeded 30%, and the proportion of advertisements on some pages is even as high as more than 50%. Such dense advertisements make it difficult for users to find the information they really want, and it also makes Baidu's search results less and less objective.
Baidu's over-reliance on advertising revenue has led to a decline in the competitiveness of its core business. In 2023, Baidu's advertising revenue will account for more than 70% of total revenue, which shows that Baidu is no longer an Internet company with technology as the core, but more like a marketing company that makes money from advertising.
Baidu's over-commercialization approach, while bringing it considerable profits in the short term, ultimately outweighed the benefits. The massive loss of users has led to a decline in traffic to Baidu's search engine, which in turn has affected its advertising revenue. In addition, Baidu's overly commercial image has also led to questions about its branding and social responsibility.
The demise of Baidu's commercialization has given a profound warning to Internet companies: excessive pursuit of short-term interests will ultimately only damage the interests of users and the company's own image. Only by adhering to the user-centered and continuously improving the quality of products and services can we win the respect of users and the long-term development of the enterprise.