I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 284 Chen Yansen, who stabbed someone in the back, received a team invitation from Zhou Hongyi!
360 Search was launched on August 3.

Zhou Hongyi set up a stage on Weibo, waiting for Li Yanhong's response so he could generate buzz.

But Li Yanhong completely ignored him and disregarded Zhou Hongyi.

Chen Yansen sat in his office, scrolling through Lao Zhou's comment section, half of which were haters.

"Mr. Zhou, if you teach me how to completely uninstall 360 Wallpaper, I'll help you curse Baidu, how about that?"

When will 360 release its flagship phone?

"Stop trying to rub against me. Look, does Mr. Li even acknowledge you?"

Chen Yansen smiled faintly. In 2012, netizens spoke sharply, each sentence piercing Zhou Hongyi's heart.

There's no way around it; when someone who's been a thug says they want to reform, nobody usually believes them.

Baidu, relying on its market monopoly, has been engaging in paid search advertising, which pollutes search quality. Users have no choice but to use it despite the negative consequences.

One netizen's reply was the most classic and received the most likes: "They keep talking about user experience, saying that users are your father and your mother, but when it comes to the critical moment, they turn their backs on their own family and don't treat their parents like human beings."

This statement is a dig at both Li Yanhong and Zhou Hongyi.

Baidu Search is a bad thing, but 360 Search is innocent?

We're all scoundrels, so why pretend to be good people?

Just then, the cell phone on the table rang.

Chen Yansen glanced at the caller ID, then pressed the answer button and put the call on speakerphone.

"Boss, should we launch Lingxi Search ahead of schedule and ride on Zhou Hongyi's coattails to get some traffic?" Zhang Yiming asked bluntly.

From May to July, Kuaidi Dache spent four to five hundred million yuan on subsidies.

If it weren't for Baidu's interference, Capital Today would never have participated in Didi Chuxing's Series B funding round, given its investment style.

At that point, Cheng Wei will either have to shut down the product or sell it to Kuaidi.

Li Yanhong's actions greatly hampered Kuaidi Dache's expansion, so Chen Yansen naturally wanted to make things difficult for him.

The day after Baidu announced its investment in Didi Chuxing, Chen Yansen immediately instructed Zhang Yiming to launch the Lingxi Search R&D project.

"Trying to ride on 360's coattails? No need! Lingxi Search isn't an appendage of 360. We don't take sides and will remain independent. If Lingxi's search quality and algorithm are bug-free, we can launch it ahead of schedule."

Chen Yansen replied.

Lingxi Search is built into the Lingxi Browser, comes with its own traffic, and has extremely strong defenses. Baidu cannot get in. For every additional mobile search user, Baidu loses one user.

The same applies to the PC version; Lingxi Search has nothing to lose, as its market share is zero.

Even if Chen Yansen only manages to snatch 5% of the market from Baidu, it would still be a victory.

"The functional tests are OK and sufficient to meet the daily needs of users, but there are deficiencies in the resources for encyclopedias and Q&A. If we scrape content from Baidu, it will violate the Robots Exclusion Protocol and could easily lead to lawsuits."

Zhang Yiming thought for a moment and answered seriously.

“It’s alright. I’ve looked at cases of infringement over the past ten years, and the largest case only resulted in a compensation of 48 yuan,” Chen Yansen said calmly.

These words left Zhang Yiming speechless. He grinned bitterly, never expecting that Chen Yansen's operational strategy to improve user stickiness was even more unconventional than his own.

"Is there a problem?" Chen Yansen asked, raising his voice when he saw that he didn't speak.

"No problem." Zhang Yiming gritted his teeth and reluctantly agreed.

Aren't they just a patrol station and a court?

It's not like I haven't been there before!

Under Chen Yansen's instruction, Zhang Yiming began to unscrupulously crawl information from Baidu Knows, Baidu Encyclopedia, and Baidu Tieba, and convert it into Lingxi's search results.

In fact, 360 Search does the same thing!

At worst, we can go to court. It might drag on for a year or two, but compared to the market share of search engines, a fine of a few hundred thousand is nothing.

Chen Yansen didn't care at all. After all, Zhang Yiming was the legal representative of ByteDance. If the bigwigs above couldn't stand it, it would be Zhang Yiming who would suffer.

On its first day of launch, 360 Search quickly seized market share in the search market by leveraging the traffic advantages of 360 Browser and its navigation site, soaring from 0 to 1.09%.

More than half of Google Search's Chinese traffic comes from 360 Navigation. After Zhou Hongyi changed the default search engine to 360 Search, Google was the first to suffer, immediately losing 16.7% of its market share in China.

At this moment, Liu Yun, the head of Google's Greater China region, was completely dumbfounded and couldn't help but curse: "Isn't 360 going to fight Baidu? Why is the gun pointed at Google's head?"

On the first day of the battle between 360 and Baidu Search, Baidu emerged unscathed, while Google suffered a bruised and battered defeat.

The next day, 360 Search's market share increased to 2.63%.

On the third day, 360 Search's market share increased to 3.91%.

Li Yanhong couldn't sit still any longer. He felt that Zhou Hongyi's offensive was a bit fierce, but 360 wanted to do search, so how could he stop them?

On August 6th, Lingxi Search was launched quietly without any prior notice. Leveraging the more than 30 million users of the Lingxi Browser, it quickly carved out its own niche.

On August 7th, 360 Search's market share increased to 5.84%. At the same time, Baidu also discovered 360's shady dealings. 360 Encyclopedia not only plagiarized Baidu Encyclopedia entries, but also blatantly bypassed the Robots Exclusion Protocol, using Baidu's information and data as its own.

Baidu immediately responded on its official Weibo account: "We welcome competition from our peers, but we oppose unscrupulous infringement."

He also tagged Zhou Hongyi, demanding that 360 immediately stop its illegal scraping behavior.

Zhou Hongyi smiled after reading it, pretending not to see it, and continued to do as he pleased, even blocking Hao123, a navigation website under Qiandu.

Users who have installed 360 Security Guard will receive a blocking warning when they open the Hao123 navigation website: This website may be stealing your personal or financial information.

The methods were shameless, but the results were remarkable.

Hao123's daily traffic dropped by 14.2% after 360's actions.

It's worth noting that in 2012, 360 Security Guard had a staggering 4.7 million installations, meaning almost 80% of internet users had it on their computers.

Of course, this also includes some netizens who want to uninstall it but can't.

Faced with Zhou Hongyi's thuggish tactics, Li Yanhong could no longer hold back and immediately launched a counterattack, blocking 360 Search's access to Baidu Knows, Baidu Encyclopedia, and Baidu Tieba. 360 users who clicked on the search results were forcibly redirected to the Baidu homepage.

Zhou Hongyi reacted quickly, replacing all the products on 360 Navigation, such as Baidu News, Maps, and MP3, with Toutiao, Gaode Maps, and Sogou Music.

The two have completely fallen out!

Immediately afterwards, Zhou Hongyi posted on Weibo, denouncing: "Qiandu Antivirus is a rogue software that users cannot uninstall. The 360 ​​Security Team will soon create a plugin specifically for users to uninstall Qiandu Antivirus."

When Chen Yansen saw Lao Zhou's speech, he couldn't help but blush for him.

Netizens couldn't hold back any longer!
Everyone knows how Zhou Hongyi made his fortune.

The old rogue angrily rebuked the big rogue!
the other side.

Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sogou, who was also in Yanjing, stared intently at last week's business report, his brows furrowed.

Although Sogou Search mainly obtains traffic through its own browser and paid channels, and its user overlap with 360 and Baidu is not high, there are still some duplicate users.

Sogou's market share dropped from 7.44% to 7.21%, a small decline, but it greatly displeased Wang Xiaochuan.

He disapproved of Baidu's monopolistic practices and also looked down on 360's rogue behavior.

Wang Xiaochuan scrolled through the online feud between Zhou Hongyi and Baidu on Weibo, and scoffed: "Old Zhou is still using the same old tricks. He starts generating public opinion before even launching the product."

Win or lose, let's just vent our anger first.

It is clear that Zhou Hongyi benefited from the traffic dividend of 360 Mobile's success, and he used the same strategy to target Lei Yijun and Li Yanhong in turn.

"@Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan, say something! If Sogou stops participating, our market ranking will drop from second to third!"

"@Sohu CEO Zhang Chaoyang, stop singing and get to the battle!"

Wang Xiaochuan smiled and shook his head. After thinking for a moment, he replied, "360 is 3, Sogou is S, and Baidu is B. I think it's better for Sogou not to participate in this, lest it become 3SB!"

Wang Xiaochuan's sarcastic remarks have been quoted by many netizens, and the 3B search engine war has become increasingly well-known.

Lingxi Search is hiding in the background, quietly seizing market share from Baidu Search.

It wasn't until August 9th, when Lingxi Search's market share reached 1%, that it came into the view of Baidu, 360, and Sogou.

After some investigation, Li Yanhong realized that Chen Yansen was behind it all, and after a little thought, he understood the other party's intentions.

Even excluding Gaode Maps, the two had already started their feud over the ride-hailing war alone.

Chen Yansen quietly launched the search business, clearly intending to use a peripheral business to undermine Baidu's core business.

Zhou Hongyi, who was the most impatient, made a phone call as soon as he learned that Lingxi Search was Chen Yansen's product.

"Mr. Chen, no wonder we get along so well, it turns out we're kindred spirits," Zhou Hongyi said with a smile.

Lingxi Search and 360 Search operate in exactly the same way, completely disregarding Baidu's Robots.txt crawler and relentlessly scraping its data.

"Mr. Zhou, you misunderstood. It's mainly because there are too many ads on Baidu Search that I created a clean, ad-free search product."

Chen Yansen gave a half-truthful, half-fabricated answer.

"Let's work on a thousand degrees together?" Zhou Hongyi sent out a team invitation.

Chen Yansen smiled knowingly and chatted with Zhou Hongyi for ten minutes before hanging up the phone.

Lingxi Search and Sohu Search have similar business ecosystems, primarily focused on mobile browser usage scenarios, making them highly defensive, and their overlap with 360 and Baidu is not high.

Therefore, Chen Yansen declined the invitation, but provided Zhou Hongyi with a technical solution to bypass Baidu's search blocking. Since it could cause trouble for Li Yanhong, Chen Yansen certainly wouldn't let it go.

Let Zhou Hongyi lead the charge, while Lingxi stays in the rear and develops quietly.

Two days later, when 360 users use 360 ​​Search in the 360 ​​browser to view search results related to Baidu products, they will be redirected to the 'Webpage Snapshot' page.

The information content is still from Baidu, but 360 Search stands in the middle and blocks users, not giving Baidu any traffic at all.

They're freeloading, and they don't even pay a cent!
On August 12, Qiandu sent a lawyer's letter to 360.

(End of this chapter)