Although it was a tough time for Google to break into the China search market, but with the market capitalization that Google has in hand, acquires a much smaller player may help them to widen their reach in China. I wondered Google has acquired 265.com, audaciously claimed itself as the platform that “most” Chinese people used, i.e. 265上网导航 - 最多中国人使用的电脑主页, as shown in their title. Generally, Google has zealously about their company’s prospect in China through the acquisition or partnering with some smaller players, such as provides the back-end technologies for a search engine that called Soso.com, according to my another post. Nevertheless, with the acquisition of 265.com or partnering with Soso.com would eventually allowed more Chinese people in China using their search engine, thus increase their market share in China, however I doubt this acquisition strategy deployed by Google may not develop into a very robust business model. In a conceptual view, do Google want the Chinese people to search through Google search engine itself or through another platform that used Google as the main search engine? It is a tricky question.

I am putting this acquisition at 99% likely, albeit that neither Google nor 265.com announced the deal. Moreover, as I checked the “Whois Record” of 265.com, it has just updated on May 31, 2007, exactly few days ago. Guess whom own this domain, it’s Google!