Which Chinese search engines should a foreign company target?

Most lists of Chinese search engines repeat the same names. A foreign company needs something else: which ones to work on, in what order, and what each one asks of you.

This guide uses one month of data, each engine’s own help pages, and says where the evidence stops. It’s part of our guide on how to be visible in China.

Which search engines do people use in China?

Baidu leads and Bing is second, across all devices. Together they took 70.69% of measured search clicks in China in October 2026, by our sum of StatCounter’s figures.¹

Engine	All devices 1	Desktop 2	Mobile 3
Baidu	49.00%	29.65%	60.37%
Bing	21.69%	46.01%	7.20%
Yandex	11.77%	4.20%	16.24%
Haosou (360 Search)	8.67%	16.70%	3.96%
Google	6.83%	2.19%	9.72%
Sogou	1.72%	1.17%	2.02%
Shenma	0.21%	Not listed	0.33%

1. Baidu49.00%
2. Bing21.69%
3. Yandex11.77%
4. Haosou (360 Search)8.67%
5. Google6.83%
6. Sogou1.72%
7. Shenma0.21%

StatCounter, October 2026, read on November 1, 2026. These recent figures may still be revised.

Read this table with four cautions in mind:

• It counts clicks, not searches. StatCounter measures clicks through to websites that carry its code.⁴ A search with no click isn’t counted.
• It swings. Baidu’s all-device share ranged from 44.64% to 63.97% over the 12 months to October 2026.¹
• Desktop may be overweighted. Desktop was 42.78% of StatCounter’s China traffic in October 2026,⁷ yet CNNIC said 1.121 of 1.125 billion users went online by mobile in December 2025.⁸ These measure different things.
• Two rows are unexplained. Google jumped from 1.45% in September to 6.83% in October,¹ while GreatFire still recorded it as blocked.³² We found no reason for that jump, or for Yandex’s level.

Other guides still quote older figures. Elite Asia’s page mixes January 2026, July 2025 and November 2024 data.⁵ Our page on search engine market share in China has the 12-month ranges, the yearly averages and how to read them.

Here’s who is behind each name you’ll want to consider.

Engine	What it is	Hosts in StatCounter’s list 6
Baidu	The Chinese company’s own engine, and the leader in the table above	m.baidu.com, baidu.com
Bing	Microsoft’s engine, with a China host	cn.bing.com, bing.com
Haosou	Also known as Qihoo 360 Search 25	so.com, m.so.com
Sogou	Indirect Tencent subsidiary since 2021 33. Also runs a search of WeChat official accounts 39	m.sogou.com, sogou.com
Shenma	Mobile engine launched in 2014 by a UCWeb and Alibaba joint venture 26	so.m.sm.cn

Which engines should you target?

Baidu first, then Bing, for most mainland buyers. If they search from office computers, work on both together. What changes the plan is where your buyer is and what device they search on.

Your buyer	Target	Why
Mainland, mostly on a phone	Baidu	60.37% on mobile. Bing is at 7.20%, behind Yandex and Google 3
Mainland, at an office computer	Baidu and Bing together	Bing 46.01%, Baidu 29.65% on desktop 2
Hong Kong	Google	Google 89.59%, Baidu 0.43% 12
Taiwan	Google	Google 80.02%, Yahoo! 10.90%, Bing 8.12% 13
Chinese speakers abroad	Decide first	See mainland China or the diaspora

The office row rests on an assumption. We found no public data on which device a Chinese B2B buyer searches from, so treat it as a sensible bet and check it against your own visits.

For Hong Kong and Taiwan, Google SEO still counts. See Chinese for Hong Kong and Taiwan. For the mainland, Google Search doesn’t work, so your Google rankings don’t carry over.

What does each engine ask of you?

The hard part is often the account, not the content. This table comes from each engine’s own pages where we could open them, and it shows how uneven the access is.

Engine	Webmaster tool	How you submit	Account hurdle
Baidu	Baidu Webmaster Tools	Sitemap, for eligible accounts 15	Overseas numbers limited, EU numbers refused 14. Real-name step 15
Bing	Bing Webmaster Tools	Add and verify a site you own 16	None found, but see the next section
360	360 webmaster platform 37	Site submission page, behind a 360 login 917	Foreign number unconfirmed
Sogou	Sogou resource platform	Link tool, no sitemap files 11. Sitemap tool by invitation only 40	Verification to manage a site 10. Owner status asks for an ICP filing 41
Shenma	Shenma webmaster platform	Sitemap listed 18	Real-name account, under terms from 2020 18

Two things stand out. Baidu’s September 2023 notice shut off sitemaps for accounts without real-name verification and for low-quality sites,¹⁵ and we couldn’t confirm that a foreign passport passes that step.

Second, no engine here owes you indexing. 360 says it doesn’t promise to index every page,⁹ and Sogou says it doesn’t guarantee to index what you submit.¹¹

Is Bing really reachable from China?

Yes in the latest tests, but on thin evidence. GreatFire found cn.bing.com not blocked in its last test on October 6, 2026, but that’s one conclusive test in 90 days.¹⁹

The Chinese host carries almost all of it. StatCounter gives cn.bing.com 20.77% of all-device clicks in October 2026, out of Bing’s 21.69%.⁶¹

Access has failed before. Microsoft confirmed Bing was unreachable in China on January 23, 2019, and said service was back the next day.²⁰

In February 2025, Sinorbis said Bing offers one search bar for domestic results and one for international results.²⁴ That suggests foreign pages may have more room there, though we found no measure of it.

We couldn’t confirm that a site added to Bing Webmaster Tools reaches cn.bing.com. The Egg explains the Webmaster Tools step, but not for foreign sites in China.¹⁶

Our guide to Bing in China goes further.

Are 360, Sogou and Shenma worth separate work?

Rarely, though 360 deserves a second look. Their combined share was 10.60% in October 2026, by our sum, but 360 alone ranged from 6.52% to 18.17% over the 12 months to October.¹ A submission is reasonable where you can get in, but a separate content plan isn’t.

Much of what’s said about them comes without evidence, so here’s how the common claims hold up.

Common claim	Who says it	What we found
360 has a lower cost per click	Sinorbis, SEJ, Elite Asia 24255	No figure on these pages. Our 360 guide lists the figures we found elsewhere, none with data
360 suits B2B	Sinorbis, SEJ 2425	No data, though it’s stronger on desktop (16.70%) than mobile (3.96%) 23
Sogou is WeChat’s default engine	SEJ, Elite Asia 255	TechCrunch said so in 2020, and noted WeChat’s own search. Nothing recent 22
Shenma suits shopping and apps	SEJ, Sinorbis 2524	Launched in 2014 with those verticals.26 Now at 0.21%, and an app-based engine may be undercounted 14

Each engine has its own guide: 360 Search, Sogou and Shenma.

Most of your work should carry across. A site that loads in China and reads well in Simplified Chinese is the base for all of them, so a second engine shouldn’t mean starting over.

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Do WeChat and AI apps replace search engines?

Not replace, but classic search is shrinking. CNNIC counted 782.06 million search engine users in December 2025, down from 877.82 million a year earlier.⁸

• AI assistants are growing. CNNIC counted 602 million generative AI users in December 2025, up 141.7% in a year. It also says AI “smart search” products are affecting traditional search engine user numbers.⁸
• The figures disagree. QuestMobile’s first-half 2026 report gives Doubao 382 million monthly users.²⁹ Beijing News gives 528 million for June 2026.³⁰ Doubao leads in both.
• Baidu itself has changed. Baidu said about 70% of its mobile result pages carried AI-generated content in October 2025.²⁸ That’s the latest official figure we found.
• WeChat favored its own content in 2020. In September 2020, 36Kr reported that WeChat search placed Moments, official accounts and Channels ahead of web results.²⁷ That order may have changed.

The Egg says your standalone corporate website is “largely irrelevant” in China’s AI search.³¹ That’s an agency’s claim, and we found no independent measure of how often these tools use foreign sites.

So don’t drop your site, and don’t assume it’s enough either. See DeepSeek, Doubao and AI answers, Baidu AI answers and foreign websites and WeChat search.

In what order should you work?

Work from the shared base outward. Each step depends on the one before, and none of them comes with a date or a promised result.

1. Confirm your market. Mainland buyers mean Baidu and Bing. Hong Kong and Taiwan mean Google.
2. Make the site work there. Start with putting your website in China.
3. Write it for Chinese readers. See translating and localizing a website for China.
4. Start with Baidu. Follow how to rank on Baidu from outside China.
5. Add Bing, then the extras. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, then submit to 360 and Sogou where you can. 360 needs an account, and Sogou has a form for unverified sites.¹¹
6. Read your own data. See which engines send visits, and track your Baidu rankings. Your data beats any share table.

Before step 6, check which Google services fail in China, because Google Analytics isn’t reliable there.³⁶

1. 1Confirm your market
2. 2Site works in China
3. 3Simplified Chinese
4. Baidu
5. Bing
6. 360 and Sogou where you can submit
7. 7Read your own data

Chinese search engine guides by theme

Every guide in this section answers one question. Pick the one closest to yours.

The market

• Search engine market share in China
• Does Google work in China?

The other engines

• Bing in China: the second engine most plans miss
• 360 Search: how to get listed
• Sogou SEO
• Shenma search: what it is and whether it matters

Search inside apps

• WeChat search: can it show your website?

AI answers

• DeepSeek, Doubao and AI answers: what changes for your site
• Baidu AI answers and foreign websites

The main engine

• Baidu SEO: how it differs from Google

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: choose your engine from your buyer’s location and device, not from a headline ranking.

For the mainland, that means Baidu, then Bing. Everything after that should wait for your own data, because the public numbers are too unstable to justify more.

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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