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Perhaps many people still remember that at the beginning of 2020, ByteDance launched its first independent app Toutiao Search. The content ecology focused on Toutiao itself, and the "search + information flow" content model directly targeted Baidu Search, which attracted a certain amount of attention in the industry. Some self-media even believed that "Toutiao Search" would completely defeat Baidu.

In the three years that followed, ByteDance successively launched Wukong Search and Lightning Search. Unfortunately, they eventually either transformed into picture and text communities or upgraded to AI tool sets, which were far from their original search engine positioning.

However, ByteDance is still determined to win the search market. Just a few days ago, it suddenly announced that it would return to the search market and launched an independent app in the fourth search category: Douyin Search, based on the content search engine built by Douyin.

Image source: Lei Technology

TikTok Search: An in-app search engine?

Just looking at the name, you might think that this is another app with a different skin, similar to "Toutiao Search", but according to the official introduction, Douyin Search is different from the display content provided by website service providers such as Baidu and Quark. The display content is mainly short videos, pictures and texts created by bloggers.

In addition, Douyin search has a video interface where users can watch short videos, live broadcasts, long videos and other content.

You should know that at the end of last year, Douyin was still exploring the search function within the main app, and launched a new function called "AI Search" based on AI, which can provide users with AI search question and answer services.

But within less than a year, Douyin launched an independent content search engine. From the perspective of positioning, it is actually an "in-app search engine" based on Douyin. In this case, why did ByteDance launch an independent search app? Xiao Lei personally tried Douyin search, hoping to find the answer.

It's more like TikTok with an extra search box.

Open the Douyin search, the homepage of the app consists of a search box and two columns of recommended content. Below the search box are hot search keywords, which can be swiped left and right to get more. The recommended content includes short videos and graphic content. It really feels like scrolling through Xiaohongshu.

Douyin search, source: Lei Technology

After entering a question or prompt word in the search box, pressing the search button will jump to the comprehensive channel, where users can find the corresponding short videos and graphic content below. In order to improve the accuracy of the search content, users can select secondary keywords for further screening. For example, Black Myth Wukong provides secondary keywords such as promotional video and ending.

In addition, Douyin search also provides search channels such as videos, users, products, and live broadcasts to further refine search results.

However, Xiao Lei always felt like he was browsing Douyin during the experience, because the two are so similar. Including the secondary keywords mentioned above, Douyin’s main app’s video channel also has them, and Douyin search just moved them to the comprehensive channel.

In order to facilitate comparison, Xiaolei specially intercepted Douyin search and Douyin's search content for Black Myth Wukong. It can be seen that the search logic of the two is indeed very similar, and both give priority to displaying live broadcasts, followed by products, and finally content. However, after refreshing, Douyin search will display different content at the top, and the weight of short videos will be significantly strengthened; Douyin special area and products remain unchanged, and the content below will be refreshed.

Douyin on the left, Douyin search on the right, source: Lei Technology

After a period of experience, Xiao Lei felt that Douyin Search is essentially Douyin with an additional search box. Whether it is UI design or page layout, the two are very similar. Douyin Search only replaced the original video homepage with search, and the friend page with video. The other pages are basically the same, with only differences in the mall entrance and other aspects.

Since the two are so similar, why develop an independent search app based on TikTok?

I think this may be consistent with the logic of the previously released Douyin Mall, Douyin Selection, and Duoshan. Douyin wants to use independent apps to better meet users' vertical needs, and Douyin Search meets users' needs for precise search.

Since its launch in 2016, the number of Douyin creators has continued to soar, and the amount of accumulated content has increased exponentially. This involves all aspects of life, and many users are accustomed to searching for questions directly on Douyin. According to official information, in 2023, the average user will search on Douyin more than 3 times a day, and search independent traffic accounts for 18%.

Image source: TikTok

As a result, how to provide users with exactly what they want from a vast amount of content has become a problem that Douyin Search needs to solve.

In the past, when searching for content on TikTok, most of the searches were based on keywords in the title. This logic worked very well for graphic and text content, while video content tested the search engine’s understanding of the video. If the creator did not add the correct tags and keywords, the search results would not be ideal.

I think TikTok search was created to solve this problem, but I haven’t felt the charm of the new search logic yet. I hope to see new changes in the future, otherwise it will be really difficult to convince users not to use the TikTok main app.

Weibo, Redmoney, and Douyin are in a war of words. Is Baidu in danger again?

In addition to Douyin, WeChat and Xiaohongshu are also among the new-age "search engines" of choice for young people. Although they are not specialized search engines, this does not prevent users from looking for answers on them. With the "user answering user" model, these platforms have achieved more real, immediate, rich and personalized answers.

However, in China, searching is not done without Baidu. Douyin and other search engines are gradually gaining influence, and if they want to continue on the search path, they will inevitably face off against this dominant player.

Recently, Baidu released its Q2 2024 financial report, and its core search business has achieved good results. The financial report shows that Baidu App had 703 million monthly active users in June, a year-on-year increase of 4%. With the continuous promotion of AI search transformation, 18% of Baidu search results are generated by AI, compared with 11% in the first quarter. At the same time, search is becoming the largest entrance for the distribution of intelligent entities, and the distribution of intelligent entities in the Baidu ecosystem has increased significantly.

Image source: Baidu App

Driven by AI, Baidu's search business has gained new vitality. The first-mover advantage allows Baidu to firmly control the minds of users. In addition, Baidu has early deployed independent products such as Baike, Zhidao, Tieba, Jiujian, Baijiahao, Wenku, Haokan Video, etc., and has built the core barrier of Baidu search with the help of the search portal, which is a traffic distribution hub and ecological connector.

Although the business scope of ByteDance's Douyin, Toutiao, and Xigua Video has spread across various fields such as medium/short videos, e-commerce, local life, and graphic and text social networking, it is currently lacking a strong hub - just as Baidu relies on search to connect long and short videos, O2O, and e-commerce services, WeChat actively guides users to reach video accounts, live broadcast rooms, and public accounts through search.

At least at this stage, Douyin Search does not have the confidence and strength to challenge Baidu.

AI is the ultimate challenger to search engines

Over the past decade, the explosion and expansion of mobile Internet has changed countless fields, and many leaders in the PC era have either withdrawn or transformed. However, in the search field, from the market structure to the product form, there has been no fundamental change. Google and Baidu are still synonymous with "search" in the minds of netizens.

In April last year, with the popularity of big AI models, the stagnant search track finally saw some ripples, and everyone saw the revolutionary significance of generative AI to search.

Search engines are built on the basis of data, knowledge and algorithms, and have a close relationship with AI. In the deep learning stage, search giants such as Google and Baidu were the main players. The big model has brought more radical changes to search, and AI search has also become the focus of giants such as Google and Baidu. In addition to the giants, many AI search products based on self-developed big models and self-developed search engines have also emerged.

For example, China's first AI search product, Tiangong AI Search, has carried out targeted design optimization for AI search, launched a search enhancement mode, and improved the timeliness of search results. It also supports multimodal interaction, and the communication method between humans and machines has shifted to the natural language communication that we are most accustomed to. Users can now ask machines questions like daily chats to find information and answers.

Image source: Tiangong AI

Tencent Yuanbao AI Search is also focused on providing more accurate results. It launched a deep search function based on AI search. Deep search is more like a supplementary version of simple search. The difference in the number of reference materials between the two is almost 10 times. Before AI large model calculations have both efficiency and depth, it can solve the specific needs of different users and find a balance between efficiency and depth.

In the past, the main way for users to actively obtain information was to enter a string of keywords in the search box, and the search engine would find the 10 most relevant web pages (which might also include a few ads), which were the so-called "10 blue links." Then the user needed to click on one or more web pages, receive a lot of information and use it as a basis for judgment.

Xiao Lei dares to believe that this search method actually has a very high threshold, which not only tests the ability to extract keywords, but also tests the comparison, screening and judgment of a large amount of information. Therefore, in the era of mobile Internet, active search has become less popular, and people are more likely to accept the active algorithm recommendation of the machine. This is also an important reason why AI search has become an important source of information for more people.

Douyin search is essentially still a traditional search, but it serves the rich media content within Douyin. Therefore, for Douyin search, the challenge comes not only from traditional giants such as Baidu, but also from the impact of new forces in AI search.

What they change is the way, efficiency and experience of users obtaining information. When AI search is powerful enough and Douyin's official search engine is no longer the optimal solution for searching content, then it may no longer be important whether Douyin search exists.