January 23 marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year and to celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Black Water Dragon, some websites had special homepages to mark the auspicious year.

China's top search engine Baidu had a dragon sitting atop its logo. The dragon becomes animated once you move your mouse over the image. The dragon dances around the page following the mouse pointer until it moves back to the Baidu logo. If you click on the dragon image a page will pop-up where users can compete in a word game. Users can submit their answers through their mobile phones for a chance to win a prize.

Another Chinese search engine, Sogou has an animated video showing the Chinese New Year celebrations with a firecracker going off. The firecracker explodes and a red packet or hong bao will appear. Users can send the red packets to their friends on their social networks or blogs.

Google has a crimson and gold dragon "Doodle" for users residing in China, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Microsoft's Bing China has a number of Chinese related background images on its homepage including a dragon which sends good fortune to all. Yahoo's homepage has a parading Dragon that chases off the animated Year of the Rabbit.