How to Check If Your Website Is Blocked in China?

The entire country of China’s internet connectivity is shielded by the Great Firewall (GFW), or as it is known by its official title, the Golden Shield Project. There are just a few state-owned ISP providers that control the entirety of the Internet in China. All traffic between China and the rest of the world goes through a few national level and core-level access points located in different regions. Additionally, according to Statista, at the end of 2021, roughly 989 million people had access to the Internet in China.

The limited number access points and staggering number of Internet users, compounded with the fact that internet traffic is controlled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, creates performance bottlenecks for users inside and outside of China, when trying to access specific websites from inside and outside of the country. Companies in the Western world have a major tradeoff to consider when getting involved with China, especially where censoring speech and content is considered.

Running the Great Firewall of China Test is easy to do:
Enter your website URL.
The Great Firewall of China test from Dotcom-Tools allows you to see what your site looks like from the following 6 locations within mainland China: Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenzhen.
Select your browser type (desktop/mobile) and resolution and network settings.
Select the Run Test button to begin the test.
Select to test from your choice of desktop and mobile browsers, including Chrome, Edge, and iOS, as well as specific device screen resolutions and network throttling options.

Once the test has finished, you can review performance reports and waterfall charts for further analysis and element-by-element performance detail.

Chinese Firewall FAq

Which websites are not blocked in China?
While it may seem like almost all the popular sites that you probably access daily would most likely be blocked in China, there are some well-known sites that are not blocked. Sites like Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, and Zoom are all available. Bing, for example, is available, but in some cases search results may be censored. Sites that are related to business or financial institutions are typically not blocked. For example, banking companies are not blocked by China. However, as we discussed above, any of that could change at any time. In fact, Yahoo is an example where it was blocked years ago, but is currently not blocked by China.

Where can I find a GFW domain list?
To no one’s surprise, there is no official list or database provided by the Chinese government as to which specific domains are blocked, however, there are activist sites, like GreatFire.org, or community-based encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, that provide information about the domains that have been censored. Even though they may not provide complete, up-to-date information, they can be a great resource to quickly see what domains are blocked.

How can I make sure my website isn’t banned by the China Firewall in the future?
Unfortunately, the Great Firewall of China is showing no signs of slowing down its censorship. If your website is hosted outside of China, there is no guarantee that your site, or elements of your site, won’t be censored. One way to help ensure your website isn’t banned by the GFW is to apply to get an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license which would allow your website to be hosted on servers within China. However, the rules for applying for an ICP license are quite restrictive and the fee is quite expensive depending on the license (well over $100k for Commercial licenses). For most businesses, the fee alone is a barrier to entry.