Alibaba Group, a notable e-commerce company in China, has partnered with Microsoft Corp. to create a new search site, a move that could challenge Baidu and Google in the Chinese search market, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Last Saturday, Alibaba Group launched a beta version of a web site called Etao, which is aimed to drive traffic to Alibaba's retail website, Taobao.com.

Search results first show up Taobao listings, including images and product prices, followed by links to related online forums and informational web sites, as well as search results provided by Microsoft's Bing.

Both companies confirmed that Etao is in public, or beta, testing, but refused to do any further comments.

Baidu's dominance in the Chinese search market has increased since Google decided not to cooperate with Beijing's censorship regulations and moved its site to Hong Kong, where the regulations don't apply. Google is still accessible in China, but sometimes interrupted by the government's firewall technology. Baidu and Google did not comment on Etao, WSJ reported.