Baidu has officially shut down the MIP feature; the MIP entry on the webmaster tools platform is closed, and by June 30, 2020 the MIP Cache service will be gradually retired. Baidu is now pushing mini-programs, and MIP is another project axed after Bear Palm (Xiongzhang).
MIP stands for Mobile Instant Pages — a mobile web acceleration protocol launched by Baidu, mirroring Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). Its main function is to accelerate the loading of mobile web pages by standardizing HTML code, JS code, and Cache caching.
Shutdown Timeline
From today – May 31, 2020: publish the MIP Cache shutdown announcement. During this period, for any questions about the MIP Cache shutdown, please email mip-support@baidu.com to inform the MIP team, and we will answer you;
June 1, 2020 – June 30, 2020: close the webmaster platform MIP entry and gradually retire the MIP Cache service.
My Take
Back then I also considered joining Google’s AMP and Baidu’s MIP, but ultimately didn’t, mainly because it required rewriting pages entirely to the new spec. I also saw many people say that normal pages and MIP pages would both be indexed at the same time, causing diluted weight and once-chaotic indexing, so I didn’t make the change.
Later I joined Bear Palm (Xiongzhang), but it too began with various modifications, merges, transfers, and shutdowns, and there were even rumors of the Bear Palm team being disbanded. In the end it was axed too, so MIP is the second axed project.
Currently Baidu mainly pushes mini-programs, but it doesn’t support individual webmasters, so I have nothing to tinker with. Maybe Baidu is afraid because its position in the mobile internet is being challenged by WeChat and Alipay, so it’s heavily pushing the Baidu app, getting every site to develop mini-programs for it and build an ecosystem. But Baidu’s product lines are a mess, isolated from each other, and I’m not bullish on mini-programs — maybe the next to be axed will be mini-programs.