Google’s had its problems in China, but for a day or so, it seemed like Yahoo had been knocked out of the running entirely – the main site was inaccessible from within that country.  The block has now been removed.

Yahoo owns 40 percent of the Alibaba Group, and some onlookers feel that tie is the only thing keeping Yahoo afloat in Asia.  But as rumors circulate that Alibaba will undergo an IPO, floating could turn into flying.

The online consumer marketplace company belonging to Alibaba.com launched business-to-consumer sales and has deals in place with several major international brands.

The owner of Yahoo China spent three-fourths of the $1 billion it received from Yahoo last summer on research & development and other projects.

Now that it has absorbed Yahoo China, Jack Ma’s Alibaba wants to be the top search site in China and render the whole Google versus Microsoft fight over China moot.

The new look for the Chinese portal, removing a lot of its clutter and simplifying the home page, now resembles its search engine competitors in China.