Beijing, Jul 31 (IANS): Search giant Google Inc, that saw many top engineers and executives leaving the company after its recent standoff with the Chinese government, has gone on a hiring spree in China.

Google intends to hire more people to bolster its existing team, the China Daily reported Saturday.

The recruitment plan comes after the government renewed Google's Internet Content Provider licence earlier this month. Analysts said the move is the first step by the search engine to regain market confidence in the country.

Google lost ground in the Chinese search engine market to Baidu and other players after the recent problems with the government remained deadlocked.

"Google wants to win the confidence of its advertising agents and partners by indicating a bigger presence in China," said Cao Junbo, an analyst with research company iResearch.

Google had in January said it would provide unfiltered results on its search site and later redirect traffic from the mainland to its Hong Kong site. The move did not go down well with its advertisers and many of them decided to reduce their advertising in the search engine.

Subsequently, Google's share of the domestic search market declined to 24.2 percent in the second quarter, from 30.9 percent earlier, the report said.