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Baidu.jp, with a similar look to its Chinese site's layout and logo, is now being tested on a trial basis.

The portal launched the Japan site quietly earlier this week but no official announcement has yet been made by the Nasdaq-listed firm.

"It's just a test version at an early stage, so we don't want to make a fuss about it in the press," said Xu Jiye, a Baidu spokesman.

The site, with its server based in Japan focusing on searching Japanese language Web pages, allows users from China to locate certain pages that are filtered in their home country, such as sexually explicit contents in its image search function.

Baidu.jp ranks 949th in terms of traffic in Japan, according to information on traffic ranking site Alexa.com yesterday. Nearly 60 percent of its users are from China while the rest are in Japan.

Plan to open a Japanese version was made known in December when Beijing-based Baidu said it would inject an initial investment of US$15 million. The test version has no advertising-related links yet. Baidu also has plans to expand into other Asian markets.

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