Internet search engine giant Google yesterday said that it will shut down its two online services in China and stop providing technical support to Chinese-language community website Tianya.

The announcement comes after the Chinese government extended Google's ICP licence on 9 July 2010 to continue its operations in the country. (See: Google gets China's nod to keep search page)

In a posting on its Chinese-language site on Tuesday, Google said that it will shut down a self-developed website ranking page and a lifestyle site in China.

Google said that the decision to close these two websites was due to "lower-than-expected demand," China Daily reported, citing a company statement.

Separately, the internet search firm  also said yesterday in a Chinese language blogpost that it will stop technical support to Chinese community site Tianya, in which it had acquired a stake in 2007.

After Google decided in March 2010 to withdraw from China over censorship issues, (See: Google seen exiting China as talks deadlock) Tianya.cn, which has 32 million registered users, and operates a social networking and forum website in China, said that it is taking over the social networking site Tianya Laiba and Tianya Wenda, a question-and-answer site.