Baidu Inc (BIDU.O) on Wednesday pledged to reconstruct its search services after debates were ignited online by a complaint about the company's quality of service.
The viral report written by journalist Fang Kecheng stated that China's leading search engine had been allowing low-quality content to be released by its Baijiahao service.
Baijiahao is supposed to filter articles from various independent and legacy outlets. However, Fang noted that Baidu properties and low-quality articles have been appearing on top of the search engine's result pages.
According to Reuters, Fang said of the issue, "Baidu no longer plans on being a good search engine. It only wants to be a marketing platform, and hopes to turn users searching for content into traffic for itself."
So far, Fang's article that was released on Tuesday has garnered over 100,000 views and continues to go viral on WeChat. It has also been shared by other popular Chinese news providers.
Baidu, on the other hand, released a statement of apology to the public. The Chinese company said it "will continue to court quality media outlets and creators and use positive mechanisms to encourage authors to spread high-quality original content."
Meanwhile, netizens have also aired their thoughts about the matter. Some netizens criticized Baidu for allowing unhelpful content to be released on its Baijiahao blog, adding that the company is now more focused on advertising instead of providing useful pieces.
The South China Morning Post noted that the recent backlash seems to have come at a very inconvenient time for Baidu. Its main competitor, Google, almost made a comeback to China's huge market.
Google left China in 2010 but Alphabet Inc.'s creation almost returned to the mainland with a censored service. However, the company halted plans for re-entry after the majority of its employees stood up against the idea. It has yet to be announced if Google will enter the mainland again in the near future but comparisons between the American internet giant and Baidu are starting to unfold.
Baidu is China's most popular search engine. Data from Statcounter revealed that the Beijing-based firm tops Alibaba's Shenma and Tencent's Sogou.
Some experts have expressed concerns over future problems that Baidu could encounter following the public outcry. Shares dropped on Tuesday after Fang's article went viral and analysts presume this is just the beginning of a harrowing year if the company fails to regain public trust.
Furthermore, analyst Alicia Yap has placed a Buy rating of $205 on Baidu.com. The numbers are significantly lower than Yap's initial placement of $262.
Baidu has yet to comment on the market fluctuations that it experienced since Tuesday.
