Baidu may not be the largest search engine around. But it's popularity is at the peak in numerous countries, especially in mainland China where it is from. On March 7th, 2017, Baidu announced that it is supporting Google's mobile framework, AMP.
As one of the tech leader in the industry, the search engine Baidu is already having MIP (Mobile Instant Pages) which is very similar to AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). In fact, MIP pages are just like AMP pages, with the exception that MIP pages are more customized and better optimized for browsers in the China's market.
Baidu said that its MIP can reduce rendering of elements above-the-fold by 30 percent to 80 percent. This will give users to have a tap-to-open rate to increase by 5 percent to 40 percent.
And not just Baidu that wants to support Google's AMP product. Google is also considering to give MIP pages a ranking advantage in its search engine results pages (SERP).
The two search engine giants are collaborating for the first time to tackle the problems of slow pages and mobile unfriendly user experiences. With the partnership, it's believed that mobile page speed will notably increase.
With both working together, there are still some technical issues that need to be solved.
The first is whether users can open an AMP page from Baidu SERP. Baidu confirmed that users can eventually do this. The next problem is whether opening an AMP page directly from SERP will make Baidu translate that page to MIP.
Prior to the announcement, the AMP Project website could not be loaded successfully in mainland China. Users can only access the site using a VPN, for example. After the announcement, the AMP website turned accessible as Google enabled the CDN for China.
The next issue is whether the Great Firewall of China will allow users outside China to open MIP pages from Google's SERP
But nevertheless, the collaboration will certainly benefit mobile internet users. With MIP and AMP together, users can enjoy a faster web experience on their mobile devices. It will also benefit brands that want to reach consumers in mainland China.