Baidu Bars Some Unlicensed Medical Firms From Paid Listings; They Account for 10-15 Percent of Revenue

November 18, 2008 at 11:55 am PT

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Baidu (BIDU) today issued a press release to address allegations in a China Central Television report that yesterday drove down the Chinese Internet search company’s shares $44.80, or 25 percent.

As I noted in several posts yesterday, a CCTV report broadcast on Nov. 15 and 16 asserted that some unlicensed medical companies appeared high in the company’s search results due to their willingness to pay for popular keywords. Baidu’s search engine mixes paid and unpaid search results. The company was also accused of pulling from its search index some organizations that declined to buy keywords.

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Tagged with: Baidu, Barrons, China, China Central Television, Eric Savitz, frontpage, index, keywords, paid-search, search, search results, shares, Tech Trader Daily, unpaid search

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  • http://bluelight.ruwannaplay? Mark Light

    SEO is a joke. If your search engine allows it, your brand is held in low disregard by searchers. Brand reputation is important. Google thinks it’s smart, in actuallity I have doubts as to Google’s true share of “search”, I hate that word. I prefer to call it Internet Users.manipulation of statistics is unethical, and could be criminal. Check your attorneys, on that one, Larry, and Sergei…(should I also include Eric?). :)

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