Baidu recently released a new feature based on its Q&A product “Baidu Zhidao”. Called as “professional Q&A”, this feature would directly a “professional” answer in bold on the top of search results of many questions.
According to Baidu, these “professional” answers are different from tons of useless, fake or vacuous answers from nameless netizens. Instead, they come from “professionals”.
However, most of these “professionals” are vague and questionable, who are displayed with no real name and only labeled as “XX doyen”, like “Game doyen”, except some real-name lawyers shown beside legal questions.
And some of such bold answers don’t seem to be reliable at all. For example, I searched on Baidu the other day if a kind of glue is safe or not, and I saw a “professional answer” on top of Baidu, but its writing is awkward – even with contains ungrammatical sentences, and it simply claims that such glues are safe without giving any evidence or references. I could hardly believe it.
“Baidu Zhidao” was a popular product and it does contain some reliable answers, but more and more people are switching to more knowledgeable and reliable websites – like Zhihu, which is the most distinguished one.
Baidu is now trying to win back its authority in Q&A section via this “professional Q&A” feature, but it still has a long way to go.