While Google continues to dominate the search news and market share in the UK and US, its closest rival has looked to another group to help boost its own piece of the search engine pie. It emerged this month that Microsoft had struck up a partnership with Baidu - the largest search engine in China.

With around 75 per cent of the market in China, it is clear that Baidu is a force to be reckoned with and the deal will allow all English search terms to go through Microsoft Bing as part of a service that will begin later this year.
The move follows a dispute last year between Google and the Chinese government relating to censorship, which led the company to rethink its operations in the territory. Despite this, it is estimated Google still manages to take up to 20 per cent of Chinese search traffic with access through proxy servers and other tricks.

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The move by Microsoft to team up with Baidu to deliver English-language search results for Chinese users is certainly interesting. 

On the one hand, it seems Bill Gates’ company is making a smart move in increasing its online power with help from the significant market share of Google’s biggest eastern rival. On the other hand, it seems pretty savvy from Baidu too, as they get access to Microsoft’s innovative approach to search.

It remains to be seen if this move will make relations between Google and China even more frosty, but one thing is for sure, it’s unlikely to have been welcomed with much of a smile over at Google HQ.