Search Concentration, Bias & Parochialism: A Comparative Study of Google, Baidu & Jike’s Search Results from China

Abstract

Do search engines drive Web traffic to well-established sites leading to a high degree of search results concentration? Do search engines favor their own content while demoting others? How parochial or cosmopolitan are search engines in directing traffic to sites beyond users’ national borders? This study explores these issues by empirically comparing search results of Baidu, Google and Jike from mainland China obtained in August 2011 and August 2012. It finds that search engines in China, particularly Baidu, tend to drive traffic to well-established sites. Baidu’s results also raise serious doubts over its impartiality. Rather than making users’ search experiences more cosmopolitan, tuned to the larger world around them, search engines rarely direct Chinese users to content beyond national borders.

Keywords: China, search engine, Baidu, Google, Jike, search concentration, search bias, search parochialism