DeepSeek (China) · last updated 2026-05-27
DeepSeek
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab whose chat interface at chat.deepseek.com gained global prominence in early 2025 when DeepSeek-R1 (a reasoning model) launched at a fraction of the cost of comparable Western models. DeepSeek Chat offers free access to both V3 (general-purpose) and R1 (reasoning) modes with web search grounding. Strong in Chinese-language queries; growing English-language usage as a free alternative to ChatGPT and Claude.
Grounding model
DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 with optional web search. The web index is proprietary; in practice it leans on a mix of Chinese (Baidu-style) and global web sources. Citation behaviour is conservative: the model cites when grounding is invoked and otherwise generates from pretraining knowledge.
Citation style
Inline numbered citations beneath claims when web search is enabled, with a sources panel listing title and URL. The English-language UI mirrors Western conventions; the Chinese UI surfaces sources in a culturally-familiar pattern.
What it rewards
- Pages with clean structured data and clear semantic HTML (the retriever leans on these signals)
- Recent dates and dating discipline
- Content with both English and Chinese coverage when relevant (boosts retrieval in Chinese-language queries)
- Specific factual claims with attribution
What it penalizes
- Pages blocked from broad web crawlers
- Generic listicle content with weak per-item differentiation
- Content with poor mobile or fast-loading performance (DeepSeek's retrieval favours fast pages)