Baiduspider — Baidu's web crawler
Baiduspider is the main crawler for Baidu, a leading search engine for Chinese-language search. It uses the Baiduspider robots.txt token. Baidu's documentation is primarily in Chinese and verification options are more limited than Google's, so treat verification with care.
What this means
Baiduspider is the primary crawler for Baidu, a dominant search engine for Chinese-language search. If your audience includes users in China, Baiduspider crawling reflects Baidu discovering and indexing your content.
Baidu provides webmaster tooling and documentation, much of it in Chinese, with its own robots.txt conventions.
Verification caveats
Verifying Baiduspider is less straightforward than verifying Googlebot or Bingbot. Public, stable verification methods are more limited and the documentation is primarily in Chinese. Where authenticity matters, rely on Baidu's webmaster documentation and treat an unverifiable user agent with caution, because the string is spoofable.
- robots.txt token: Baiduspider
- Documentation primarily in Chinese (Baidu Webmaster / Ziyuan)
- Verification options more limited than Google/Bing
How it appears in analytics and logs
A request carrying the Baiduspider token is Baidu's crawler fetching a URL — a bot event. Baidu matters most for audiences in China; verification is harder than for Google, so treat the user agent cautiously.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise Baiduspider crawling when targeting Chinese-language audiences, and apply robots.txt policy for Baidu's crawler.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies Baiduspider server-side as a search crawler and shows its activity separately from human traffic, so Baidu crawl coverage is visible without log parsing.
Common mistakes
- Assuming Google-style reverse-DNS verification works identically for Baidu.
- Trusting a Baiduspider user agent without caution.
- Counting crawler hits as human visits.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the user agent — no human identity. WebmasterID records Baiduspider as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- YandexBot — Yandex's web crawler
YandexBot is the main crawler for Yandex, a search engine with a strong presence in Russian-language search. It uses the YandexBot robots.txt token and can be verified through reverse DNS, where the IP should resolve into a Yandex domain, confirmed by a matching forward lookup.
- Sogou Spider — Sogou's web crawler
Sogou Spider is the crawler for Sogou, a Chinese search engine. Its user agent contains the Sogou identifier. English-language documentation is limited and verification options are not well published, so this entry is marked partially verified.
- Bot intelligence
See search-engine crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
- Baidu — webmaster (Ziyuan) platformBaidu's webmaster platform; Baiduspider documented primarily in Chinese.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.