2010 International Conference on E-Business and E-Government

A Comparative Study for Search Engines’ Business Model
--Base on the case of Baidu and Google
Hou Hanpo
School of Business Beijing Technology and Business University Beijing, China

Li Haibo
School of Business Beijing Technology and Business University Beijing, China

Wen Jing
School of Business Beijing Technology and Business University Beijing, China

Abstract—Due to the advantages of the search engine’s business value, search engine has been rapidly developed in the network economy era. With the market competition become white-hot, search engine enterprises are facing the problem how to choose an effective business model. A search engine’s business model was designed in this paper. Based on the six dimensions in business model, a comparative study about the representative search engine enterprises in China and the USA was conducted. It was found that Baidu and Google have a unique competitive advantage in market and products respectively. But to win the future market, Baidu and other Chinese search engine enterprises should pay more attention to product design, market segmentation, as well as understanding of the Internet culture, and to provide users with differentiated products and unique user experience as a competitive strategy. Keywords- Search Engine, Business Model, User Experience, Product Design, Market Segmentation

the business actors involved, and the sources of revenue. Afuah and Tucci (2000) defined internet business model as a method by which a firm uses the internet resources to obtain long-term profit. Henry Chesbrough and Richard Rosenbloom (2002) analyzed business model into six dimensions such as value proposition. They took business model as a mediating construct between technology and economic value. Peter Drucker (2006) directly pointed out that the competition of