The parent company behind TikTok, ByteDance, is taking part in the world of search marketing as it rolled out its own search engine on August 12.
The new search engine, called Toutiao Search, is an extension of an existing news aggregator, which is also owned by ByteDance.
The results that Toutiao pull are from the web and other properties owned by ByteDance. Similar to other search engines in China, the results are censored.
As an example, if users search for a breaking news topic, they will see only results from state-approved media outlets in China.
As far as being a threat to Google is concerned, the threat is pretty low as Toutiao Search is geared toward people in China.
Toutiao has the potential to eat into Baidu’s market share, since ByteDance is pretty popular.
ByteDance is currently the most highly-valued startup in the world, which is what makes the launch of its own search engine particularly notable.