Yodao, a Chinese search engine has officially launched in China today, according to Yodao’s blog (in Mandarin). I previously have posted about Yodao Beta, with the Chinese pronunciation that comes with the meaning of “with reasons, ways.” Previously, Yodao was provided search and other search-related services that powered by Google China, but it has shifted its strategies by offering its own search engine.

According to Yodao’s blog, they’ve improved the search engine since their first inception in December 14 last year, on their landing page, you’ll see they’ve now focused on comprehensiveness. They’ve indexed more Web pages, and updated their search engine with the newly launched of News search, RSS reader and a new online dictionary version 1.0. The CEO of Yodao claimed that there is still a long way before the Chinese search engine market reach saturation phase and recognized the need for greater relevance, he is confident that Yodao will become the number one search engine within three years, as reported by CnBeta (in Mandarin).

According to a trusted source in China, a new search engine that called Yodao will be officially launch on July 1st next month. There had been talk in the media of China that this search engine will replace the so.163.com. Indeed, in many ways, 163.com was not considered as a search engine that similarly to Baidu, that owned their proprietary search technology, but was rather a Google’s partner in China that happened to be using Google’s search technology in reaching the Chinese users. However, thing might change now, they launched their new search engine, Yodao could represent a new chapter for them.

On the landing page of Yodao, users can search through the web, image (pictures), blog and dictionary. As I enter the keyword “technology” on their search engine, two lines of explanation appeared. as shown in the above picture:

Meaning: 1. The development of the information technology is the greatest technological advance of the 20th century.

Grammar: 2. Large scale industry emerged only gradually as technology evolved.

I simply don’t understand why they build this “dictionary” services into their search engine. A biased view is that majority of Chinese people that living in China are lack of English proficiency than those that stayed in South-East Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. In the other way, some Chinese living in Malaysia or Singapore that I met, they don’t speak Mandarin.

In addition to this, Yodao has also built-in the text snapshot view whenever you move your mouse cursor to the links of the search results, as illustrated by this page. There is more information, i.e. some demos in this search engine on their “Help” page (in Mandarin).