SAN FRANCISCO — Google stopped censoring the Internet for China by shifting its search engine off the mainland Monday but said it will maintain other operations in the country. The maneuver attempts to balance Google's disdain for China's Internet rules with the company's desire to profit from an explosively growing market.

Google's decision comes after an impasse pitting the world's most powerful Internet company against the government of the world's most populous country. But it's not clear Google has resolved the standoff that began Jan. 12. That's when Google said it would no longer adhere to China's requirement that it keep some Internet results out of its citizens' view.

Visitors to Google's old service for China, Google.cn, are now being redirected to the Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong, where Google does not censor the search results. The Hong Kong page heralded the shift Monday with this announcement: "Welcome to Google Search in China's new home." The site also began displaying search results in the simplified Chinese characters that are used in mainland China.

However, the results can't all be accessed inside China, because government filters restrict the links that can be clicked by mainland audiences.

Google plans to keep its engineering and sales offices in China so it can keep a technological toehold in the country and continue to sell ads for the Chinese-language version of its search engine in the U.S. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., also intends to keep its mapping and music services on Google.cn.

But the revolt against censorship threatens to crimp Google's growth, particularly if China retaliates by making it more difficult for the company to do business in the country. The Chinese government could react by blocking access to Google's services, much as it has completely shut off Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google.

In a way, Monday's change harks back to how Google operated in China before 2006. Back then Chinese users could search through Google sites such as Google.com, although filters inside China kept people there from clicking through to links generated by queries such as "Tiananmen Square massacre."

Google tried to better reach Web users in China by setting up Google.cn, whose results would be tailored for them. That meant complying with rules requiring the omission of search results the government deemed subversive or pornographic.

On Jan. 12, the search company vowed to shake loose from government-imposed restraints on the Internet. It said it was no longer comfortable playing by the rules after it determined that Google and more than 20 other U.S. companies had been targeted in computer hacking attacks originating from China.