Baidu’s public algorithm record is a penalty record. From 2013 the search team named anti-spam systems after plants, weather and objects, and posted them on the Search Resource Platform. There is no Google-style “core update” calendar, and after autumn 2021 the named releases largely stop. This page keeps rows where a date is tied to a Baidu notice or to Chinese round-ups that cite one. Skynet and several 2016 Ice Bucket point releases are discussed underneath instead, because the surviving primary text is thinner.
| Date | Update | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 2 September 2021 | Qingfeng 4.0 (清风) | Download-ecosystem rules tightened again for low-quality download sites. |
| 27 July 2021 | Lantian 2.0 (蓝天) | Stronger detection of sites that build directories just to publish off-topic or weak content. |
| 12 January 2021 | Jinglei 3.0 (惊雷) | Click-fraud and fake-click manipulation; repeat offenders treated more harshly. |
| 27 February 2020 | Jinfeng (劲风) | Malicious aggregate pages: cross-topic dumps, titles that do not match, static search-result pages, thin or dead aggregates. |
| 7 November 2019 | Xiyu 2.0 (细雨) | B2B and yellow-page quality rules upgraded. Some compilations date the note 17 November. |
| 8 August 2019 | Jufeng 3.0 (飓风) | Cross-domain scraping and site networks, on PC, mobile H5 and smart mini-programmes. Official notice. |
| 22 May 2019 | Xinfeng (信风) | Announced as forthcoming. Baidu did not publish a precise go-live day in the notice. |
| 12 November 2018 | Ice Bucket 5.0 (冰桶) | Mobile landing-page experience: ads, forced interaction and broken browsing flow. |
| 16 October 2018 | Qingfeng 3.0 (清风) | Download-industry rules, beyond the fake-download pass earlier that year. |
| 13 September 2018 | Jufeng 2.0 (飓风) | Harsher scraping controls. The notice says the rollout follows later in September. |
| 28 June 2018 | Xiyu (细雨) | B2B supply-and-demand and yellow-page sites with thin or misleading listings. |
| 31 May 2018 | Aurora (极光) | Landing-page time signals, so fresher URLs can win when the query is time-sensitive. |
| 23 May 2018 | Jinglei 2.0 (惊雷) | Click-fraud rules extended. |
| 19 April 2018 | Qingfeng 2.0 (清风) | Deceptive download buttons and fake software downloads. |
| 20 November 2017 | Jinglei (惊雷) | Click manipulation used to inflate rankings. Some round-ups say 21 November. |
| 19 October 2017 | Lightning (闪电) | Slow mobile landing pages. Dated from the Search Resource Platform announcement. |
| 14 September 2017 | Qingfeng (清风) | Title cheating: stuffed or misleading titles written to win the click. |
| 4 July 2017 | Jufeng (飓风) | Sites whose main content is aggressive scraping. |
| 23 February 2017 | Fenghuo plan (烽火) | Original-content and anti-collection push. A programme as much as a single formula. |
| 21 November 2016 | Lantian (蓝天) | News sites selling directories and paid soft-article placements. |
| 18 November 2014 | Ice Bucket 2.0 (冰桶) | Full-screen app-download walls, ads covering the article, forced login on mobile. |
| 22 August 2014 | Ice Bucket (冰桶) | Forced app-download pop-ups and large mobile ads. Some summaries say 30 August. |
| 1 July 2013 | Green Vine 2.0 (绿萝) | Soft-article links filtered harder, and sites that publish paid posts can be hit. |
| 17 May 2013 | Pomegranate (石榴) | Pages whose ads block normal reading, especially pop-ups over the content. |
| 19 February 2013 | Green Vine (绿萝) | Buying and selling links, including brokers, sellers and buyers. |
| 18 August 2009 | Box computing (框计算) | Not a spam filter. Robin Li’s model: one box recognises the demand and returns an app, answer or data service. |
Key algorithm events
Baidu did not spend the late 2000s publishing Penguin-style brand names. The public idea, on 18 August 2009, was box computing: type a need, and the box should identify it and return the application or data, not only ten links. Contemporary coverage, including Sina’s interview with Robin Li from the technology conference that day, is about that product bet. Aladdin-style open data and a 2012 upgrade against hyperlink manipulation sit in the same era. They matter, and they are badly documented compared with what comes next, so they stay in this essay rather than as extra rows with soft dates.
The named era opens on 19 February 2013 with Green Vine (绿萝). The target is the link market: brokers, sites that sell links, and sites that buy them. Green Vine 2.0 on 1 July 2013 extends that to paid soft articles, which had become the polite way to buy the same links. Pomegranate (石榴), 17 May 2013, is the ad twin: pop-ups and junk layered over the page. Read together, 2013 is Baidu saying the two standard Chinese SEO tactics of that decade, link deals and aggressive monetisation, were now ranking problems. International sites that only watch Google miss this. A clean backlink profile in Ahrefs can still be a Green Vine problem if the Chinese footprint is brokered posts.
Mobile is the next chapter, and it has one name: Ice Bucket. The first release, dated 22 August 2014 in compilations that point at Baidu’s announcement (others say 30 August), hit forced app-download pop-ups and oversized ads. Ice Bucket 2.0 on 18 November 2014 added full-screen download walls, ads covering the copy, and forced login. Later point releases through 2016, including versions often numbered 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5, keep showing up in Chinese SEO histories. Ice Bucket 5.0, 12 November 2018 in those same histories, is the landing-page experience white paper in algorithm form: can you read the page, are the ads sane, can you finish the task. Where this page is unsure of a day, the row is omitted. The pattern is not. From 2014, Baidu’s mobile ranking is an experience ranking.
From 2016 the names multiply, and each one is a specific abuse. Lantian (蓝天), 21 November 2016, goes after news sites that sell directories and soft placements. Jufeng (飓风), 4 July 2017, is scraping. Qingfeng (清风), 14 September 2017, is title cheating. Lightning (闪电), announced on the Search Resource Platform on 19 October 2017, is slow mobile landing pages. Jinglei (惊雷), around 20 November 2017, is click fraud. Then the version numbers: Qingfeng 2.0 (April 2018) for fake downloads, Jinglei 2.0 (May 2018), Aurora (极光) on 31 May 2018 for time signals, Xiyu (细雨) on 28 June 2018 for B2B yellow pages, Jufeng 2.0 that September, Qingfeng 3.0 in October, Ice Bucket 5.0 in November. 2019 brings Xinfeng (announced 22 May, go-live day not stated), Jufeng 3.0 on 8 August against cross-domain scraping and site networks, and Xiyu 2.0 in November. Jinfeng (劲风), announced 27 February 2020, is the aggregate-page crackdown: pages that are only indexes, mismatched titles, static internal search URLs, empty clusters. Baidu’s own algorithm guide still groups these systems under content quality, demand match, experience and fairness.
2021 is the last busy year in public. Jinglei 3.0 on 12 January, Lantian 2.0 on 27 July, Qingfeng 4.0 on 2 September. Chinese SEO histories also record a Skynet (天网) pass in August 2016 and a Fenghuo follow-up in August 2021. Fenghuo’s February 2017 launch is in the table because it is consistently described as Baidu’s original-content programme. Skynet is not given a row: the date is widely repeated and the primary notice is not in the same shape as the later wiki posts.
After September 2021 the named drumbeat goes quiet. That is the important gap, not a sign that ranking froze. Baidu’s generative-search work, Wenxin in the box, and later AI-search APIs are product launches. They are not a new 绿萝. Treat a blog that invents a 2024 “core algorithm” name with suspicion unless it links a Search Resource Platform notice. What did change for publishers is distribution: citations inside AI answers, widgets and skills, which is a different fight from classic rankings. The widgets note and the Baidu Webmaster recap cover that layer. Classic on-page risk is still the 2017–2021 list: scraped copies, stuffed titles, manufactured directories, click schemes, slow mobile pages, and B2B doorway aggregates.
Parallel histories: Yandex and Naver. Last reviewed 3 October 2026.