Chinese Internet company Baidu launched its blog search service on Thursday to help Internet users navigate their way through the 20 million Chinese bloggers.

It is the first Chinese search service specifically for blogs.

Yu Jun, a senior executive with Baidu, said the service was based on a database of billions of websites, including all the blogs supported by Chinese blog service providers and individual blog websites.

The new service is expected to boost Baidu's users. Baidu started its space channel last July to provide blog services.

A report released by Baidu earlier this week showed the number of bloggers who use Chinese had reached 19.87 million, a 24-percent rise over the same time last year, producing 52.6 million blogs.

The number of blog service providers rose nearly 55 percent in the past year to 1,460. Qzone, run by Tencent, had the most bloggers and visitors. It was followed by Sina.com, MSN Spaces andSohu.com.

As the largest Chinese search engine, Baidu hopes to expand its business in the growing market, said analysts.