How to Submit Your Site to Baidu: Sitemap, URLs, API

To submit your site to Baidu, add and verify it in the Baidu Search Resource Platform, then submit a crawlable Sitemap, individual URLs, or newly published URLs through Baidu’s API-push tool. Submission helps Baidu discover pages, but it does not guarantee crawling, indexing, ranking, or traffic.

The current legitimate workflow is property verification followed by one or more of Baidu’s ordinary-inclusion methods: Sitemap submission, manual URL submission, and API push. The best choice depends on your site size, publishing frequency, and development resources.

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Key takeaways

Baidu’s current entry point for site verification and URL discovery is the Baidu Search Resource Platform at ziyuan.baidu.com.
Baidu documents three ordinary-inclusion methods: API push for newly published URLs, Sitemap submission for periodic discovery, and manual submission for no-code URL notification.
A text Sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must be smaller than 10,485,760 bytes according to Baidu’s published platform documentation.
Baidu says Sitemap submission and URL submission do not guarantee that pages will be crawled or indexed; page quality and crawlability still matter.
Baiduspider access can be blocked by robots.txt, page-level noindex directives, HTTP errors, unstable hosting, network restrictions, or inaccessible JavaScript-rendered content.

What does it mean to submit a site to Baidu?

Submitting a site to Baidu means notifying Baidu that particular URLs exist and should be considered for crawling. Submission is only one stage in the search process, not a shortcut to ranking.

Stage	What happens	What submission does
Property verification	You prove that you control a domain, host, or other property scope.	Gives you access to Baidu’s site-management and resource-submission tools.
URL submission	You tell Baidu about a Sitemap or one or more URLs.	Provides a discovery signal.
Crawling	Baiduspider requests and fetches a page.	Submission may encourage discovery, but cannot force a successful fetch.
Indexing	Baidu evaluates whether to store and use the page in its search index.	Submission does not guarantee inclusion.
Ranking	Baidu determines where an indexed page appears for a search query.	Submission does not guarantee visibility or traffic.

Baidu’s own documentation states that submitting URLs or a Sitemap does not guarantee that every URL will be crawled or included, and that inclusion depends substantially on page quality. The Baidu ordinary-inclusion documentation describes API push, Sitemap submission, and manual submission as discovery methods rather than indexing guarantees.

Who should submit a site to Baidu?

Submitting a site to Baidu is most useful when the site has a meaningful audience or business objective in mainland China. Common candidates include:

Chinese-language websites targeting users in China.
International companies with Chinese content, a Chinese subdirectory, or a China-focused subdomain.
News, publishing, and ecommerce sites that produce pages frequently.
Developers integrating a CMS, deployment pipeline, catalog system, or publishing API.
Businesses that want Baidu visibility in addition to visibility on Google, Bing, or other search engines.

A non-Chinese site can still be submitted, but submission alone cannot overcome weak language relevance, poor accessibility from China, slow or unstable hosting, duplicate content, regulatory restrictions, or pages that offer little original value. China-facing hosting, latency, network access, and regulatory obligations should be assessed for the specific business and jurisdiction; neither mainland hosting nor a particular filing should be treated as a universal technical prerequisite without current legal advice.

What do you need before submitting to Baidu?

Prepare the site and the Baidu property before opening the submission tool. Use this checklist:

A publicly accessible website with a stable canonical domain and URL structure.
Ownership or administrative access sufficient to complete Baidu verification.
A working HTTPS configuration, valid DNS, and a certificate that Baiduspider can negotiate reliably.
Important pages that return successful HTTP responses, normally 200 OK.
No accidental robots.txt rule blocking the site or Baiduspider.
No accidental noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag: noindex header on pages intended for search.
Internal links leading from crawlable pages to important content.
A valid Sitemap containing canonical, public, indexable URLs.
Useful, original content that is accessible without login, a consent barrier, or a JavaScript-only experience that prevents meaningful HTML from being fetched or rendered.
A plan for checking server logs, crawl errors, duplicate URLs, redirects, and page availability from China-facing networks.

How do you add and verify a site in Baidu?

Use the Baidu Search Resource Platform to add the property and prove ownership. The exact Chinese menu names and verification choices can change, so confirm the labels in the live interface before publishing internal instructions.

Open https://ziyuan.baidu.com/.
Sign in with a Baidu account or create one if the platform permits account registration for your situation.
Open the site or property-management area and add the domain or host you want to manage.
Select the property scope offered by Baidu. Pay close attention to whether the scope covers a domain, protocol, hostname, subdomain, or URL prefix.
Complete one of the verification methods shown by the platform. Baidu may offer a verification file, an HTML meta tag, or a DNS record.
Confirm verification, then return to the resource-submission tools for the verified property.

Verify the exact protocol and hostname used in your URLs. A property for https://www.example.com may not automatically cover http://example.com or a separate subdomain, depending on the scope Baidu assigns. Keep the verification file, meta tag, or DNS record in place after launch. Removing the verification evidence during a redesign can invalidate ownership.

CDNs, reverse proxies, firewalls, bot-management systems, and security plugins can interfere with both verification and crawling. Check that the verification request and Baiduspider requests are not rejected by IP rules, challenge pages, rate limits, or regional access controls.

How should you create a Baidu-compatible Sitemap?

Create a Sitemap containing only canonical URLs that Baidu should consider for search, then host the file at a publicly fetchable HTTPS address such as https://example.com/sitemap.xml or https://example.com/sitemap.txt.

Baidu’s published documentation describes support for XML Sitemaps and plain-text URL lists. A plain-text file must contain one complete URL per line, with no additional text. Baidu’s documentation specifies UTF-8 or GBK encoding, a maximum of 50,000 URLs, and a file size below 10,485,760 bytes for the text format. These are per-file limits, not a promise about your site’s overall submission quota. See Baidu’s Sitemap formats and limits before implementing a large submission system.

A basic XML Sitemap can look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/guide/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Set lastmod to the date of a meaningful page change, such as a substantive content update, not merely the time your CMS regenerated the Sitemap.

Which URLs belong in the Sitemap?

Include URLs that are canonical, public, useful, and intended for search. Exclude:

URLs blocked by robots.txt.
Pages carrying noindex directives.
Redirecting URLs when the final canonical URL can be submitted instead.
Duplicate or near-duplicate URL variants.
Tracking parameters, session IDs, and parameter combinations that create crawl traps.
Private pages, login pages, search-result pages, empty category pages, and soft 404 pages.

Baidu’s documentation says Sitemap data helps Baidu understand site structure and improve crawling strategy. Baidu also says that Sitemap priority does not affect search ranking, and that the order of URLs in the file does not change how Baidu uses them. The Sitemap crawl-frequency setting is a hint about how often the Sitemap file changes; it is not a guarantee that every listed page will be recrawled at that interval.

Should you submit a Sitemap index file?

Do not assume that Sitemap index files are supported. Baidu’s cited platform documentation says index-file submission is no longer supported for new processing in the described workflow, although historically submitted index files may have different treatment. Submit supported XML or text URL-list files directly unless the current Baidu console explicitly confirms index-file support.

How do you submit a Sitemap in Baidu?

After verifying the property, submit the publicly hosted Sitemap through the resource-submission area.

Generate and validate the Sitemap.
Open the verified property in Baidu Search Resource Platform.
Open the resource-submission or ordinary-inclusion area.
Choose the Sitemap tool.
Choose the URL-list format offered by the current interface, if Baidu asks you to do so.
Enter the complete Sitemap address, including the protocol and hostname.
Set the crawl or update frequency according to how often the Sitemap file itself changes.
Submit the file and revisit the Sitemap list to inspect processing status.

Some English-language instructions describe the route as site verification followed by link submission, automatic submission, and Sitemap. Menu translations can differ from the current Chinese interface, so use the live platform’s labels rather than an old screenshot. The Alibaba Cloud Baidu Sitemap instructions provide secondary English-language context for this workflow.

Baidu’s published material says Sitemap processing may begin within about one hour. That statement concerns processing of the submitted file, not a promise that Baidu will crawl, index, or rank each listed page.

When should you use manual URL submission?

Manual URL submission is the simplest choice when a site has only a few important pages, lacks development resources, or needs to notify Baidu about a key page without building an integration.

Verify the website property.
Open the ordinary-inclusion or URL-submission tool.
Paste the complete URL or URLs permitted by the current interface.
Submit the URLs.
Save the response, timestamp, or processing status.
Investigate technical or content problems instead of repeatedly submitting the same URL.

Manual submission is useful for a new homepage, an important product page, or a newly published article. Manual submission does not replace a Sitemap, internal links, crawlable navigation, or a sound information architecture. Submitting the homepage alone does not tell Baidu how to discover every internal page.

When is Baidu API push the best method?

API push is the best primary method for news sites, publishing platforms, large ecommerce catalogs, frequently updated websites, CMS integrations, and automated deployment pipelines where prompt discovery of new URLs matters.

Site situation	Recommended method	Reason
Small brochure site	Sitemap plus occasional manual submission	Low maintenance and sufficient for a small URL set.
New site launch	Sitemap plus manual submission of key pages	Provides site structure and highlights the most important initial URLs.
News or frequently updated site	API push plus Sitemap	API push reports new URLs promptly while the Sitemap provides durable coverage.
Large product catalog	API push plus segmented Sitemaps	Automation handles new products and multiple files provide a fallback discovery path.
No developer access	Sitemap or manual submission	Avoids building and maintaining an API integration.
Migration	Canonical URLs, redirects, updated Sitemap, and relevant migration tools	Submission alone does not transfer all old URL signals or fix migration errors.

How should you implement API push safely?

Use the endpoint, token, quota, and request format displayed inside the current verified Baidu property. Do not copy an endpoint or token from an old blog post. Baidu’s older platform manual includes a curl example, but API details can change.

Verify the site property.
Open the current API-push tool.
Copy the console-generated submission endpoint and token.
Store the token as a server-side secret, never in browser JavaScript or public source code.
Deduplicate URLs before sending them.
Send complete canonical URLs in the format shown by Baidu.
Log HTTP responses, accepted counts, rejected counts, and error messages.
Retry transient network or server failures, but do not endlessly retry permanent validation failures.
Respect the daily quota shown by Baidu.
Continue maintaining a Sitemap even after API push is enabled.

A generic text-body pattern looks like this:

curl -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' 
     --data-binary @urls.txt 
     'CURRENT_BAIDU_ENDPOINT_WITH_TOKEN'

The accompanying urls.txt file contains one URL per line:

https://www.example.com/new-page-1
https://www.example.com/new-page-2

Replace the placeholder with the endpoint shown in your Baidu account. Common API failures include an expired or exposed token, the wrong verified hostname, URLs outside the property scope, a malformed request body, duplicate URLs, redirects, non-canonical URLs, server timeouts, and exceeded quotas.

Baidu says quotas can vary by site and may be reduced when submissions contain many duplicate, noncompliant, low-quality, or otherwise invalid resources. More submitted URLs are therefore not automatically better. Clean URL selection and reliable page quality are safer than sending every URL your system can generate.

How do you check whether Baiduspider can crawl the site?

Before diagnosing a failed submission, test the site as a crawler would. Start with the root robots file:

https://example.com/robots.txt

Look for rules such as:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

User-agent: Baiduspider
Disallow: /

Also investigate broad patterns such as:

Disallow: /*?*

Baidu’s Baiduspider robots.txt guidance explains that robots.txt controls crawler access and documents examples for blocking the whole site, blocking Baiduspider, restricting dynamic URLs, and allowing or denying file types.

Check the page source and HTTP response headers for directives that prevent inclusion:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
<meta name="Baiduspider" content="noindex">

X-Robots-Tag: noindex

Robots.txt and noindex do different jobs. Robots.txt limits crawling, while noindex asks the search engine not to include a page. Baidu explains that a URL blocked by robots.txt can still appear as a URL or snippet based on external references even though Baiduspider cannot fetch the page content. Do not use either directive casually on pages intended for Baidu search.

Technical checks that matter beyond robots.txt

Request each important URL and confirm the status code, redirect chain, final URL, and canonical tag.
Fix recurring 403, 404, 410, and 5xx responses where the URL is meant to be indexed.
Inspect rendered HTML to ensure the main content is available without requiring unsupported or failed JavaScript execution.
Check DNS resolution, TLS negotiation, response time, and server stability.
Review server logs for Baiduspider requests and response codes.
Check whether a firewall, country block, CDN, or bot-management layer prevents access from relevant China-facing networks.
Confirm that important pages are linked from other crawlable pages.
Remove duplicate, parameterized, thin, automatically translated, or soft-404 URLs from the discovery system.
Test mobile rendering, particularly for pages whose primary audience uses mobile search.

How long does Baidu take to crawl and index a submitted page?

Baidu may begin processing a submitted Sitemap relatively quickly, but the time to crawl and index individual pages varies. Baidu’s published statement about processing within approximately one hour is not an indexing deadline, and a dated statement that historical quick inclusion aimed at approximately 48 hours is not a current universal service-level promise.

Do not treat “submitted,” “accepted,” “crawled,” and “indexed” as interchangeable statuses. A submission acknowledgement means Baidu received the discovery request. It does not prove that Baiduspider fetched the URL, that Baidu selected the page for its index, or that the page will rank for a query.

Baidu has changed product names and eligibility rules over time. Older references to Baidu Webmaster Tools, Tian-level inclusion, quick inclusion, or standalone URL-submission pages may not describe the current platform. A Baidu help article says the older Tian-level inclusion system was retired and replaced by quick inclusion, but the article’s eligibility details are dated. Treat quick-inclusion availability as account- and property-dependent and verify it in the current console rather than assuming every site qualifies.

Why was the Sitemap accepted but the pages were not indexed?

An accepted Sitemap means Baidu received or processed the file; it does not mean that every listed page passed crawling and indexing evaluation. Investigate the following in order:

Crawl access: Check robots.txt, firewalls, country or IP blocks, DNS, TLS, and server logs.
HTTP behavior: Confirm that important URLs return stable successful responses and do not pass through unnecessary redirects.
Indexing directives: Remove accidental noindex directives and verify the canonical points to the intended URL.
Content quality: Improve thin, duplicated, empty, automatically translated, or low-value pages.
Information architecture: Add internal links and crawlable navigation to pages that are currently isolated.
Accessibility: Make important content available without login, consent barriers, or a failed JavaScript rendering step.
Market relevance: Check whether the language, location, subject matter, and user experience genuinely serve the intended China audience.
Domain history: A new domain or a site with weak trust signals may require more time and stronger content before broad inclusion.

Repeatedly resubmitting the same URLs is not the primary remedy. Fix the cause, update the page or technical configuration, then use the appropriate discovery method once the URL is valid.

What should you do when Baidu rejects a Sitemap?

Check the property, file, access, format, and URL scope before submitting the corrected Sitemap again.

Confirm that the site property is verified.
Confirm that the Sitemap address is publicly reachable without authentication.
Confirm that the Sitemap uses the same verified host and protocol as the submitted URLs.
Validate the XML syntax or plain-text formatting.
Use absolute URLs rather than relative paths.
Keep the file within Baidu’s documented URL and size limits.
Check that the server returns a normal success response for the Sitemap.
Ensure robots.txt does not block the Sitemap or its URLs.
Remove malformed, duplicate, redirected, non-canonical, and unsupported URLs.
Submit the corrected file and monitor its new processing status.

Why is the site visible in other search engines but not Baidu?

A site can be indexed elsewhere and remain absent from Baidu because search engines apply different crawl, quality, language, market, and accessibility judgments.

Check Baidu-specific property verification and submission status first. Then investigate whether Baiduspider can reach the site, whether the server is slow or unstable from China-facing networks, whether the content is relevant to Chinese users, and whether duplicate or automatically translated pages provide insufficient original value. Regulatory, hosting, and network conditions can also affect a China-facing site, but these possibilities should be evaluated for the site’s actual location and business model rather than assumed.

Why are internal pages missing after submitting the homepage?

Submitting the homepage does not replace a Sitemap, internal links, crawlable navigation, or direct discovery of important new URLs. Baidu needs paths through which it can find the site’s deeper content.

For a small site, submit a Sitemap and manually notify Baidu about a few especially important pages. For a large or frequently updated site, maintain a clean Sitemap and integrate API push into the CMS or publishing pipeline. Make sure category, product, article, and service pages are linked from crawlable pages rather than existing only in client-side filters or search forms.

Which Baidu submission method should you choose?

Choose based on publishing frequency and implementation capacity, not on the assumption that one method guarantees faster indexing.

Need	Primary choice	Recommended supporting practice
Few pages and no developer	Manual submission	Maintain a Sitemap and internal links.
Small, stable business site	Sitemap	Manually submit key launches or important updates.
New website launch	Sitemap plus manual submission	Submit the homepage, key sections, and initial priority pages after verification.
Frequent publishing	API push	Keep a Sitemap as a durable fallback and coverage check.
Large catalog	API push plus multiple supported Sitemap files	Deduplicate URLs and monitor quotas, errors, and crawl logs.
Migration	Updated canonicals, redirects, and Sitemap	Use any relevant migration tools available in the current Baidu platform.

Final pre-submission checklist

Open the verified Baidu property at ziyuan.baidu.com.
Confirm the property scope matches the exact HTTPS hostname you are submitting.
Fetch robots.txt and verify that Baiduspider is not unintentionally blocked.
Test representative pages for status code, redirects, canonical, noindex, rendered content, and mobile behavior.
Publish a valid, publicly accessible Sitemap with canonical URLs only.
Choose Sitemap, manual submission, API push, or a combination based on your publishing workflow.
Keep API credentials private and use the current endpoint shown in Baidu’s console.
Log submission responses and check Baiduspider visits in server logs.
Investigate accepted-but-unindexed URLs for access, quality, duplication, and relevance problems.
Do not promise a client or stakeholder that submission guarantees indexing, rankings, or traffic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a Chinese domain or mainland China hosting to submit a site to Baidu?

You do not need to assume that a Chinese domain or mainland China hosting is a universal technical prerequisite for submitting a site to Baidu. A foreign site can be submitted, but language relevance, network accessibility, latency, hosting, and any applicable regulatory obligations can affect crawling and usefulness in China.

Does submitting a Sitemap guarantee Baidu indexing?

No. Baidu says Sitemap and URL submission do not guarantee crawling or indexing. A Sitemap is a discovery and site-structure signal; Baidu still evaluates crawlability, page quality, duplication, accessibility, and relevance.

Should I submit every URL manually to Baidu?

No. Manual submission is practical for a small number of important URLs, but a Sitemap is better for durable site coverage and API push is better for frequent publishing. Repeatedly submitting duplicate or invalid URLs can be counterproductive.

Does Sitemap priority improve Baidu rankings?

No. Baidu’s published documentation says Sitemap priority does not affect search ranking, and the order of URLs in the Sitemap does not change how Baidu uses them.

Can I use a Sitemap index file for Baidu?

Do not assume that a Sitemap index file is supported for new processing. Baidu’s cited platform documentation says index-file submission is no longer supported in the described workflow, so submit supported XML or text URL-list files directly unless the current console says otherwise.

The Bottom Line

Use the verified Baidu Search Resource Platform, submit a clean Sitemap, manually notify Baidu about a few key URLs when useful, and add API push for high-frequency publishing. Treat every method as a discovery request—not an indexing promise—and troubleshoot crawl access, technical errors, content quality, and China-market accessibility before resubmitting.

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How to Submit Your Site to Baidu: Sitemap, Manual URL Submission, and API Push