November 6, 2007
Yahoo China takes jibe at Baidu with latest banner ad

Yahoo China has taken a jibe at its arch-nemesis in the search arena, Baidu, with new banner ads featuring a bald big-bellied man peering out into the distance with a telescope and a tagline that says "If you can search only 100 degrees, you might as well search 360 degrees with Yahoo" (搜索只能搜100度,不如雅虎全能搜搜360度). Baidu's Chinese name 百度 means, literally, "100 degrees". According to this report at least, several webmasters have complained that their websites were penalised by Baidu since they started putting up Yahoo ads. Shanghaiist loves a bit of comparative advertising every now and then. Let's see how Baidu will respond.


But Yahoo probably didn't realize the etymology of Baidu's name, which comes from 众里寻她千百度. So Baidu is not just 100 degrees, but (at least) 1000 degrees!