China Youku blocks Baidu and Google

The site, which is among the powerhouse players in the Chinese online video industry, reportedly spends as much as 50 per cent of its expenditure on bandwidth.

Much of Youku’s traffic, which it claims to be more than 100 million viewers per month, originates from searches on these sites and blocking the crawls may amount to a significant loss in web traffic and subsequent advertising dollars.

Currently, no video website anywhere has become profitable.

A representative from Youku could not be reached for comment.