The Year of the Snake could well go down as the time when Baidu finally lost its dominance over the mainland's lucrative online search market, following the rapid rise of a new challenger from up-and-comer Qihoo 360 that may soon tie up with global search titan Google.  Such an alliance would mark the latest assault in Qihoo's campaign that has seen so.com soar past other more established players to become the mainland's second largest search engine in just half a year.

Such a tie-up would provide a major boost to Qihoo, helping it to quickly monetize so.com by instantly giving it access to Google's sophisticated and far-reaching advertising networks and search technology. Such a move would provide a welcome dose of competition for the mainland's search market, which has been dominated by Baidu for much of the last decade.

Longer term, such a tie-up could also eventually lead to Google's purchase of a strategic stake in Qihoo, marking the US search giant's return to the mainland market through a Chinese-controlled partnership that would be more to Beijing's liking. Google was the controlling stakeholder in its previous mainland search business, which led to frequent clashes with mainland authorities and Google's high-profile withdrawal from the market in 2010.

Qihoo has made steady headlines since last summer following the launch of so.com, which includes a number of innovative features such as integrated searching that allows users to query several major engines with just a single search. It also formed a number of tie-ups with other mainland content providers, before news emerged last week of a potential Google partnership that would be its biggest partnership to date.

Qihoo wouldn't confirm the talks, but the tie-up would most likely initially involve a partnership that would give Qihoo access to Google's technology and advertising resources. That would allow both Qihoo and Google to quickly ramp up so.com, benefiting both companies through a revenue-sharing agreement.

Data released last week show that Qihoo's share of the mainland search market officially crossed into double-digits in December, reaching about 10.4 percent. That share was still well behind Baidu's 72 percent share; but it was also solidly ahead of the third biggest player, Sohu's Sogou, which had about 8 percent of the market after nearly a decade in operation.

Google was the mainland's fourth on the list with about a 5 percent share, but that number is down sharply over the last three years since it withdrew from the Chinese mainland. A new tie-up between Google and Qihoo would instantly create a solid number-two player with a combined 15 percent share of the market.

While that's still just a small fraction of Baidu's share, there's no indication that Qihoo's momentum will slow at all in 2013.

If anything, Qihoo's could even see its share gain speed up if it finalizes a new partnership with Google, giving it a powerful new allay in its assault on the Chinese mainland search market.

The author is a former company news reporter from Reuters. He writes about company news at www.youngchinabiz.com.