GEO in China: Doubao, Yuanbao, Qwen, ERNIE, DeepSeek and Kimi

This guide is for marketing and content teams whose customers ask Chinese AI assistants: Doubao, Yuanbao, Qwen, ERNIE (Wenxin), DeepSeek and Kimi. It gives the order of work: measure, map each platform’s sources, publish where each one reads, and keep the search engines able to crawl your site. Expect a few days to set up measurement, then steady monthly work. The Chinese platforms publish almost nothing about how they pick sources. Most of what follows is dated industry observation, so treat it as a starting map to re-test.

The short version

1. Measure in the consumer apps your customers use, not only through APIs.
2. Map which ecosystem each assistant draws on for your category and city.
3. Publish in each of those ecosystems instead of copying one article everywhere.
4. Keep Baidu, 360, Sogou and Toutiao able to crawl and verify your site.
5. Write comparison and list-style content that answers buying questions.
6. Look after third-party pages about you, including complaint and registry sites.
7. Stay inside the rules on AI data poisoning and fake content.

1. Measure in the real apps

Start by sampling answers, because you can’t see inside these systems. The same model can give opposite results in its API and its app.

A 2026 study of Pilates studios in Hefei ran the same questions through vendor APIs and through consumer apps. DeepSeek recommended the studio in 69% of API runs but 1% of app runs. Yuanbao was the reverse: 3% by API and 99% in the app.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-08 · 腾讯新闻（报道合肥图灵象普拉提行业GEO白皮书）

Observed in 2025-09, more than 9 months ago. Answer engines change often; re-test before relying on this.

In September 2025 Miaozhen asked DeepSeek, Doubao and Yuanbao 2,025 times in all: one typical question per category, five categories, 135 runs per model. It concluded that results reach basic stability only at 30 or more runs per prompt, and low-visibility brands need 60 or more.

Observed in practice · observed 2025-09 · 中国商务广告协会AI营销应用工作委员会 · 秒针营销科学院

• Build prompts from real customer questions, mostly category questions without your brand name.
• Ask on phones, logged out or on a fresh account, from your customers’ city.
• Report each platform separately. Method: Measuring AI visibility by sampling prompts.

2. Map each platform’s ecosystem

Each assistant leans on content from its own corporate group. Knowing which group owns which assistant tells you where to look first.

A pharma study by IQVIA and a partner (three cases, 300 prompts each) found Doubao leaning to ByteDance’s Toutiao accounts, Douyin and Kuaidong Baike. Yuanbao leaned to WeChat official accounts and Tencent News, and Wenxin to Baijiahao and Baidu’s medical Q&A sites. Kimi favoured Zhihu, Bilibili and mainstream portals.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-06 · 艾昆纬（IQVIA）· 上海零假设信息科技 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

In the Hefei Pilates study (consumer apps, 3,469 citations), Doubao cited local classifieds, Douyin and Toutiao most. Yuanbao cited Toutiao and Tencent’s portal most, and Qwen cited Dianping most. The report concludes that one set of articles for all models doesn’t work.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-08 · 合肥图灵象人工智能科技有限公司 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

DeepSeek narrowed sharply to academic and government sites in the second half of 2025. From the second quarter of 2026 it widened again to large portals such as Sohu and NetEase.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-06 · 艾昆纬（IQVIA）· 上海零假设信息科技 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

Assistant	Group	Where to look first
Doubao	ByteDance	Toutiao, Douyin, Kuaidong Baike
Yuanbao	Tencent	WeChat official accounts, Tencent News
ERNIE (Wenxin)	Baidu	Baijiahao, Baidu Q&A sites
Qwen	Alibaba	Dianping for local questions
DeepSeek	—	Portals, authoritative sites; changes often
Kimi	—	Zhihu, Bilibili, portals

The exact sites depend on category and city. Full detail and dates: Which sources Chinese AI assistants cite.

3. Publish in each ecosystem

One article syndicated everywhere tends to reach only some assistants. The studies found little overlap between platforms.

Observed in 2025-10, more than 9 months ago. Answer engines change often; re-test before relying on this.

Growthbox and Percent Technology monitored seven platforms from July to October 2025. Of 51,000 sources cited, only 9.34% were cited by four or more platforms.

Observed in practice · observed 2025-10 · 增长黑盒 · 百分点科技 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

A 2026 guide from GDMS and Miaozhen reports that Doubao’s citations were more concentrated and stable, while Qwen, DeepSeek and Yuanbao were more scattered and changeable.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-09 · GDMS全球数字营销峰会 · 秒针营销科学院 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

Practical split:

• Pick the two or three assistants that matter most to your customers.
• Run an account in each matching ecosystem (a Toutiao account, a WeChat official account, Baijiahao, a Zhihu presence).
• Adapt the same facts to each channel’s format. Keep prices, specs and names identical everywhere.
• Keep your own site as the canonical source of those facts.

In China you don’t optimise for “AI”. You optimise for ByteDance, Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba, one ecosystem at a time.

4. Keep the search engines able to crawl you

The assistants don’t document their crawlers, but the search engines in the same groups do. Your own site still needs to be crawlable by them. No public document from these engines yet says how their AI products choose pages.

Baiduspider follows robots.txt. Blocking Baiduspider removes a site from Baidu search and from other search results Baidu provides. The FAQ names no separate token for Baidu’s AI products.

Officially documented · Baidu

Baidu’s sitemap protocol allows 50,000 URLs per file but requires each file to be under 10MB, also before gzip compression.

Officially documented · Baidu

360 Search supports user-agent, allow and disallow with the tokens 360Spider, 360Spider-Image and 360Spider-Video.

Officially documented · 360 Search

Sogou’s crawler supports robots.txt, but a changed file can take several weeks to take effect.

Officially documented · Sogou

Toutiao Search names its crawler Bytespider and published IP ranges in 2019. The page does not mention robots.txt.

Officially documented · Toutiao Search

360 Search says its crawler does not yet support reverse DNS checks. Match the IP against the ranges it publishes instead.

Officially documented · 360 Search

Checklist for your site:

Engine	Do this
Baidu	Allow Baiduspider; submit sitemaps under 10MB; verify by reverse DNS
360	Allow 360Spider; verify by published IP list
Sogou	Allow Sogou’s crawler; allow weeks for robots changes
Toutiao	Don’t block Bytespider by accident at the firewall; treat its 2019 IP list as incomplete

Details: robots.txt, XML sitemaps, Verify AI crawler traffic in server logs. Main text must be in the server HTML (JavaScript rendering and AI crawlers).

5. Write content that answers buying questions

Cited content in China leans heavily towards lists and comparisons.

DataStory asked 18–22 questions per category on six Chinese AI platforms (web and app, 12 endpoints), three times each, across nine consumer categories. Cited content was mostly ranking and recommendation lists (22.8%–72.0%), then product descriptions (3.6%–42.2%). User reviews were under 3% in every category.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-08 · 数说故事 (unpublished report, not publicly available; readers can't check it)

• Publish honest comparison pages and buying guides that name the criteria.
• State specs, prices, service areas and certifications as plain facts.
• Writing style: For content editors: writing articles AI answers can quote.

6. Look after third-party pages

Assistants read pages you don’t control. A forgotten complaint can become part of an answer.

In the Hefei study, DeepSeek cited complaint and consumer-rights platforms 75 times, 23.9% of all its citations. It also often cited business registry lookups.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-08 · 腾讯新闻（报道合肥图灵象普拉提行业GEO白皮书）

• Search complaint sites, Dianping, registries and Baike for your name each quarter.
• Resolve complaints in public, and correct registry and encyclopedia data at the source.
• More on earned coverage: PR and brand teams: how press, encyclopedias, Q&A sites and reviews shape AI answers. On wrong answers: When AI gets your brand wrong: find it, fix it, prevent it.

The page that hurts you most is usually one you never wrote and forgot to check.

7. Stay inside the rules

The CAC’s 2026 campaign on AI misuse lists AI data poisoning as a target, including forging authoritative data and using GEO for malicious marketing. Its second stage targets fake-account networks that mass-produce near-identical posts.

Officially documented · 新华网（中央网信办通知）

CCTV’s 3·15 show reported a test in which a GEO tool published more than ten promotional articles about a fitness band that did not exist. Two major AI models then recommended it near the top.

Observed in practice · observed 2026-03 · 第一财经

The second claim shows the tactic works for a while. The first shows why it is now a regulatory risk. Background: GEO regulation in China.

What not to do

• Don’t measure only through APIs. API and app results can be opposite (step 1).
• Don’t treat old source maps as current. DeepSeek changed its sourcing within a year (step 2).
• Don’t mass-publish near-identical “recommendation” articles. That is what the Qinglang campaign targets (step 7).
• Don’t buy services that promise first place in an assistant. Nothing public shows a reliable way to guarantee it (Claim: seeding brand mentions across the web boosts AI visibility, Before you hire a GEO agency).
• Don’t block Bytespider or Baiduspider to stop AI use. No documented token separates their AI use from search (step 4).

How you’ll know it’s working

• Re-run the same prompt set monthly in each app, 30 or more runs per prompt (Measuring AI visibility by sampling prompts).
• Track per platform: mention rate, position of first mention, and which of your channels are cited.
• Check that the facts assistants state about you match your site.
• Re-map sources every six to nine months. Reporting to management: For marketing leads: measuring GEO and reporting it upward.

Evidence at a glance

Recommendation	Evidence
Measure in apps, 30+ runs	Observed
Each assistant favours its own group	Observed
Publish per ecosystem, not one copy everywhere	Observed
Crawler access for Baidu, 360, Sogou, Toutiao	Official
Lists and comparison content	Observed
Watch complaint and registry pages	Observed
Avoid mass-produced promotional content	Official (regulation)