Does Baidu have a similar tool to Google Scholar?

Posted by By Dan Taylor 2 Min Read

Yes, Baidu has a similar function to Google Scholar known as Baidu Scholar. Launched in 2014, Baidu Scholar is a free academic search platform dedicated to providing access to a vast amount of academic resources, including journals, theses, books, and conference papers.

It aims to be the most comprehensive research platform in China, with an index of over 400 million literature resources by the end of 2018.

Features and Accessibility

The platform aims to be the most comprehensive research platform in China, leveraging Baidu’s resource retrieval technology and big data mining analysis capabilities.

This makes it an invaluable tool for scholars who work with Chinese subjects or are limited to Chinese as their working language.

Baidu Scholar offers features such as open access searches, field-specific searches, and multidisciplinary searches, making it versatile for various academic needs.

Collaborations and Impact

Interestingly, Baidu has also been involved in collaborative efforts to promote open academic resources.

In a notable initiative, Baidu teamed up with Microsoft, Google, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) to advance open academic search capabilities.

This collaboration aims to enhance the discovery and accessibility of academic resources globally, reflecting a shared goal among these tech giants to support the academic community.

For researchers, especially those focusing on Chinese language and subjects, Baidu Scholar represents a powerful tool akin to Google Scholar. Its extensive database and advanced search capabilities make it a pivotal resource in the academic world.

For more information, you can visit Baidu Scholar.

Dan Taylor
View More Posts
Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor