Which Baidu SEO tools do you need, and how do you find Chinese keywords?

Search for Baidu SEO tools and you’ll find short lists of the same names. They rarely say what each number measures, or which tools you can open from outside China.

That’s the real problem, because a foreign team can easily compare a daily average with an index and draw the wrong conclusion. This guide is part of our series on Baidu SEO.

Which Baidu SEO tools do you need?

You need one tool per job, not one suite. Baidu’s own tools hold the only first-party data, and third-party tools fill the gaps.

Job	Tool	Made by	What it gives you
See your own keywords	Search Resource Platform, Traffic and Keywords report	Baidu	Impressions, clicks, average rank 1
Measure visits	Baidu Tongji	Baidu	Traffic, including a search terms report 20
Read trends	Baidu Index	Baidu	Index over time, related terms, regions, audience 59
Size paid demand	Keyword Planner	Baidu	Volume, competition, bid estimates 46
Find real phrasing	Autocomplete and related searches	Baidu	Free suggestions on Baidu itself 7
Expand a list	5118, Aizhan, Chinaz	Chinese vendors	Long-tail ideas, some with volume and CPC figures 71617
Use one outside suite	Dragon Metrics	Third party	Suggestions, volume trends, CPC, difficulty 10
Audit your pages	Screaming Frog	Third party	Crawl and on-page export 19
Track positions	See our rank tracking guide	Various	Positions over time

The Platform and Tongji show what already happens on your site. The keyword tools only point to possible demand, but a brand-new site has nothing else to start from.

Baidu’s tools cover only Baidu. StatCounter put it at 49.00% in October 2026, with Bing at 21.69%.²¹

Our page on search engine market share in China has the detail.

Can you get into these tools from outside China?

Partly, and the sources disagree. Baidu’s logged-in tools start with registration, so the account comes first.

Baidu’s help pages contradict each other. One undated page says accounts accept only mainland China numbers.¹⁴ Another allows foreign numbers through four product lines, and says EU numbers aren’t accepted.¹⁵

A mainland number is the route described without reservation.

Our guide to the Baidu phone number problem compares what third parties report.

Tool	What sources say you need	Where sources differ
Search Resource Platform	Baidu account 6, verified site 31	Phone number rules, see above
Baidu Index	Baidu account 6	EC Innovations says to start with a free Baidu account.8 Sampi calls it free for Baidu advertising accounts.9
Keyword Planner	Baidu PPC account 47	EC Innovations adds a Chinese business license.8 Chinafy says setup goes through a Chinese-speaking representative.6
Baidu Tongji	Registration, code on every page 20	China Briefing described it in 2015 as available to “any China website.”4 The Tongji page we read doesn’t mention hosting
5118, Aizhan	Not stated in what we read	Unknown from outside China
Dragon Metrics	Vendor account, free trial offered 10	None found

Which keyword number should you trust?

Don’t read any of them as an exact count of searches, and note that they don’t share a unit. Compare keywords inside one tool, never across two.

Source	What the number is	Unit	Weakness
Traffic and Keywords	Your impressions and clicks on Baidu 1	Selected period	Only your site, only keywords you already appear for
Keyword Planner	Average search volume 4	Daily, as reported in 2015 4	Built for ads, and older reports may not match today
Baidu Index	Weighted search frequency 2	Index, not searches 3	Keywords below a threshold show nothing 23
5118	Volume and CPC figures 7	Daily, according to Chinafy 7	Its homepage doesn’t say where the figures originate 16
Dragon Metrics	Monthly volume history 10	Monthly	Vendor claim, method not shown on the page
Ahrefs	Clickstream estimate, as of 2019 13	Estimate	Current Baidu coverage unverified 32

Why Baidu Index isn’t search volume

Most guides call it a volume tool. Chinese analysts are clearer: the index correlates with search volume, but it comes from a statistical model.³

It’s described as a weighted sum of search frequency, split into PC and mobile.² We found no published formula, so you can’t convert an index into a number of searches.

Blank results need care too. A 2016 analysis says a keyword may show nothing because its volume is under the threshold, or because it’s blocked.³ One 2023 guide adds that finance keywords get no data.²

The same 2023 guide says you can pay to add a keyword, with data from the next day and no history.² We haven’t tried it.

Daily and monthly figures don’t compare

China Briefing described the Planner in 2015 as showing average daily volume, and contrasted it with Google’s monthly figures.⁴ Dragon Metrics’ Baidu history is monthly too.¹⁰

Label the unit in your spreadsheet before you paste anything into it.

Do Semrush and Ahrefs work for Baidu?

Only in part, and neither replaces local tools for keyword research. Check your own plan before you rely on either.

• Semrush: Its help page says most tools work with Google, and lists Baidu for Position Tracking (top 50) and traffic estimates.¹¹ It limits Baidu tracking to national level and desktop devices.³³
• Semrush keywords: Its database list has Hong Kong but no China entry, as read in November 2026.¹² In 2018 it said Baidu tracking had no volume or CPC data.²⁹
• Ahrefs: It added Baidu to Keywords Explorer in 2019, using purchased clickstream data that it extrapolates.¹³ Its Keywords Explorer page, read in November 2026, mentions Google and not Baidu.³² That page alone doesn’t show what the tool offers today.
• Ranktracker: It offers a Baidu option in its keyword tool, and doesn’t say where the figures come from.³⁰

Elite Asia’s 2026 tool table describes Semrush as “Google keyword data, Baidu position tracking.”²⁸ Being on a list doesn’t tell you what data sits behind a tool, so ask the vendor where its Baidu volumes come from.

Dragon Metrics says it’s the “only source of historic search volume data for Baidu on the web.”¹⁰ That’s its own claim, and we can’t confirm it.

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How to do Baidu keyword research, step by step

Start from Chinese phrasing, cross-check it in several places, and then let your own data correct you. You’ll need a native speaker for this.

1. List topics, not translations. Write down what buyers want, in your own language. Elite Asia suggests 5 to 10 core terms, based on customer problems.²⁸
2. Have a native speaker phrase them. Ask how a buyer would type the need, in Simplified Chinese. See how to translate your website into Chinese.
3. Expand on Baidu itself. Type each term and record autocomplete, then the related searches on the results page.⁷ It’s free, and it uses Baidu’s own wording.
4. Check the demand map. A 2016 guide says this Baidu Index view plots related terms: distance shows relevance, size shows the index, red means rising and green means falling.²⁷
5. Compare within one tool. Rank terms against each other, and note the seasons. EC Innovations advises publishing 2 to 3 months before holiday peaks.⁸
6. Read the results page. Search each term, and note what ranks: guides, sellers, ads or Baidu’s own products.
7. Assign one page per need. Terms that bring up the same kind of results usually belong together.
8. Check on your own data. Once pages appear, Traffic and Keywords shows what Baidu really matched them to.¹

Step 6 matters more on Baidu. Ryte found Baidu products in the top 3, 10 and 30 across the five industries in its study, published in 2022.²²

That study used Dragon Metrics, because searching Baidu directly gives personalized results.²²

So your own check is a useful reading of intent, not a position report. For positions, see how to track your Baidu rankings.

Keep one sheet for all of it

Record the same fields for every term, so nobody compares the wrong numbers later.

Column	What to enter
Term	The exact Chinese wording, with a plain English gloss
Found in	Autocomplete, related searches, demand map, vendor tool
Index	Baidu Index value and date, or “blank”
Volume	Value, tool name and unit
Intent	What the buyer wants at this point
Results page	What dominates: guides, sellers, ads, Baidu products
Target page	One URL, or none

Then place terms where Baidu said in 2017 that it looks: TITLE, page keywords and H tags, with anchor text in support.²³ Its rules for B2B sites list stacked similar keywords in a title as manipulation.²⁴

Our guide to Baidu ranking factors covers the rest.

What should you use at each stage?

Use what your situation unlocks, and add tools as you go. You can begin without any Baidu account.

1. 1No accountAutocomplete, related searches, vendor tools
2. Baidu accountBaidu Index
3. 3Verified siteTraffic and Keywords
4. 4Tracking codeTongji
5. 5Ads accountKeyword Planner

What you have	What it unlocks	What you still lack
Nothing yet	Autocomplete, related searches, results pages, vendor tools on their own accounts	Any first-party number
A Baidu account	Baidu Index, subject to the access doubts above	Volume for niche terms
A verified site	Traffic and Keywords 1, plus the Webmaster Tools setup	Data on terms you don’t appear for
Tongji’s code on every page	Visits and a search terms report 20	Whether it records a site hosted abroad
A Baidu Ads account	Keyword Planner 4	Organic competition data

Don’t open an ads account just to read a keyword tool. It makes sense only if you plan to advertise, which our Baidu SEO or Baidu Ads guide helps you decide.

Your own report deserves more attention. Baidu’s manual, updated in 2020, gives today (about 5 hours behind), yesterday, 7 days, 30 days, or a custom range within 30 days.¹ Its rank is a period average.¹

A 2017 Dragon Metrics guide says the report downloads as CSV, with 50,000 rows at most.²⁶ A newer extension listing says there’s no such download, as our English guide notes. If yours has one, save it monthly, because the window doesn’t reach back further.

Tongji is the other source. The Egg said in 2020 that Baidu stopped passing source keywords to third-party tools in June 2015, and favored Tongji for that reason.¹⁹

We couldn’t confirm how complete its search terms report is today.

Which metrics and shortcuts should you ignore?

Ignore anything that looks like a score from Baidu but isn’t, and anything that adds fake activity. Chinese tools make both easy to run into.

• Baidu weight (百度权重): Aizhan and similar sites display it.¹⁷ A 2019 article says third parties calculate it and Baidu doesn’t recognize it.¹⁸ We found no Baidu statement, so don’t target it.
• Index as a goal: A 2016 analysis notes that some people pay to inflate Baidu Index, and lists cheating among the causes of swings.³ Check sudden spikes against the events shown in the tool.⁹
• Keyword density: Chinafy cites under 1% without a working source.⁷ We found no Baidu figure.
• Automatic rewriting: 5118 sells rewriting and AI article tools.¹⁶ Baidu’s Hurricane rules, as updated in 2020, target assembled articles and mass-collected content.²⁴ We found no Baidu rule that addresses current AI text.

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: we found no tool that documents exactly how many people search for a term on Baidu. Each gives a different kind of figure, in its own unit.

Start with real phrasing from a native speaker and Baidu’s suggestions, compare within one tool, and let your own impressions and clicks settle it.

How Index in China can help

We translate your site into Simplified Chinese with a human reviewer, work on getting it indexed on Chinese search engines and send a monthly report on Chinese traffic.

We don’t promise rankings or traffic. See what we do or book a 30-minute call.

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