What is Mobile Adaptation and What Does the Mobile Adaptation Tool Do?

The following article is our English interpretation of an post originally published on Baidu Webmaster Help pages in Chinese language. If you'd like to check out the original article, you can find it here: https://ziyuan.baidu.com/college/courseinfo?id=267&page=15

To improve user experience on Baidu Mobile Search and give mobile pages more visibility in search results, websites are encouraged to submit the relationship between their desktop (PC) and mobile versions of the same content. This process is called mobile adaptation.

Baidu offers a Mobile Adaptation Tool to support this. If your site has both PC and mobile versions with identical core content, you can use this tool to establish the connection between the two. Once submitted and verified, Baidu can guide mobile users directly to the corresponding mobile version of your content, increasing exposure and improving user experience.

How to Use the Mobile Adaptation Tool

If your mobile site mirrors your PC site in terms of content, follow these steps via Baidu’s Search Resource Platform to set up the adaptation relationship and attract more mobile traffic:

Step 1: Register and log into Baidu Search Resource Platform.

Step 2: Submit and verify ownership of your PC site.

See the platform’s documentation for verification methods.

Step 3: Once verified, go to:

Search Services → Resource Submission → Mobile Adaptation,
then select your PC site and click Add Adaptation Relationship.

Step 4: Choose the submission method based on your site’s structure:

1. Pattern (Rule) Adaptation

Use this if your PC and mobile URLs follow a consistent format.
Example:
PC: www.example.com/picture/12345.html
Mobile: m.example.com/picture/12345.html

Submit a regular expression (regex) for both formats.
Baidu strongly recommends this method because:

  • It only needs to be submitted once.
  • It automatically applies to all future URLs following the same pattern.
  • It’s easier to manage and has a faster processing time.

2. URL Mapping (One-to-One)

If your URL structures vary and can’t be expressed via patterns, upload a file containing exact PC-mobile URL pairs.

  • Format: One pair per line, separated by a space.
  • Max 50,000 pairs per file.
  • You can also paste up to 2,000 pairs in a text box.

Regardless of method, always specify the PC and mobile site URLs first—this helps Baidu validate the data quickly.

Using the Tool for Directory-Based Mobile Pages

If your mobile version is under a directory on the same domain (e.g. www.a.com/a.html → www.a.com/m/a.html), you can still use the adaptation tool. Though not ideal from an SEO perspective, Baidu still supports this.

Set the same domain for both PC and mobile, then use pattern adaptation as usual.

Understanding Adaptation Status

✅ Validation in Progress

Takes about 10 days. During this time, the data cannot be deleted.

❌ Validation Failed

Common reasons:

  • Content mismatch: PC and mobile pages differ too much.
  • Mobile page issues: PC page submitted as mobile, or mobile page violates ad policies.
  • Dead links: Broken pages in your submission.
  • Unindexed pages: If Baidu hasn’t indexed the pages yet, they’ll be queued for crawling.
  • Pattern errors: Invalid regex, URL mismatches, low page volume, or incorrect relationships.

Details will be shown on the platform to help you fix the issues.

☑️ Validation Successful

Your adaptation will go live within 10 days.

⚠️ Partial Success

Some URL pairs failed. Check the error messages and resubmit the failed ones.

How to Update or Fix Adaptation Data

Want to make changes? Just submit new data:

  • Validation-pending data can’t be deleted but can be overwritten.
  • Failed submissions can be updated directly.
  • Even if the original data was already successful, new data can replace it.

Tips for Better Adaptation

  1. Main domains must match in structure, even if TLDs differ.
    e.g., PC: www.abc.com.cn, Mobile: m.abc.net — still valid.
  2. Use pattern adaptation whenever possible.
    Easier to maintain and faster to process.
  3. Write regex precisely.
    Use specific patterns for numbers, letters, and mixed strings. Examples:
    • ([0-9]+) – numbers only
    • ([a-zA-Z]+) – letters only
    • ([a-zA-Z0-9]+) – mixed alphanumerics
    • For Chinese characters in encoded URLs: ((?:%[a-zA-Z0-9]{2,})+)
  4. Validation takes ~10 days, go-live takes 1–2 days.
  5. Keep data accurate and up to date.
    Baidu will revalidate from time to time.

Common Issues That Hurt Effectiveness

  • Dead mobile pages.
  • robots.txt blocking Baidu’s crawler (Baiduspider).
  • Mobile pages using AJAX to load core content.
  • Regex or file format errors.
  • Poor matching logic (e.g., mapping PC content page to a mobile homepage).
  • Mobile pages requiring login or lacking substantial content.

Regex Format Examples

Here are a few pattern-to-pattern mappings:

Numeric ID 

PC: http://www.abc.com/26299483.html  
Mobile: http://m.abc.com/26299483.html  
Pattern: http://www.abc.com/([0-9]+).html → http://m.abc.com/${1}.html

Alphanumeric Mix 

PC: http://www.abc.com/a1cc1n2q5y3/  
Mobile: http://m.abc.com/a1cc1n2q5y3/  
Pattern: http://www.abc.com/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/ → http://m.abc.com/${1}/

Chinese Characters (URL Encoded) 

PC: http://www.abc.com/%E9%95%BF%E5%9F%8E%E8%8A%B1%E5%9B%AD/  
Pattern: http://www.abc.com/((?:%[a-zA-Z0-9]{2,})+)/ → http://m.abc.com/${1}/

Parameter Handling

PC: http://www.abc.com/article.html?act=test&id=123  
Pattern: http://www.abc.com/article\.html\?act=([^&]+)&id=([^&]+) → http://m.abc.com/article.html?act=${1}&id=${2}
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