A new Chinese search engine ChinaSo, has just entered the market and is set to shake up the way China searches for news.It is a merger of PanguSo.com, backed by state news agencies Xinhua and Jike.com and party-run newspaper People’s Daily. Although still towing the line of notorious press censorship in the region, the new platform will allow users to browse a variety of news from one source.

Both of the aforementioned sites now redirect users to the new Chinese search platform: www.chinaso.com.

The news search engine offers common search mediums such as web, image, video, map and news results.

In addition to these traditional methods, it also offers users search on national and local newspapers. This is a clear USP of the search platform as local and national news items are currently largely handled as separate entities, even within the online medium of news delivery.

The platform also provides vertical news portals for national, political, local, international and financial news. Again, this juxtaposition of news categorized by either geography, subject classification or political leaning is a huge leap forward within the Chinese market from both a news and a search perspective.

ChinaSo’s predecessors, Panguso and Jike search, occupied less than 0.2% of the market share previously, and it is not expected that this search engine will do too much to shake China’s search engine market by challenging regional giants Baidu, 360 and Sogou. That said, Chinaso is a step in the right direction and has a focus on news accessibility and diversity that remains unmatched as it stands.