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How to Check if China Blocks Your Website

This guide shows simple ways to find out if people in mainland China can open your site, and what you can do about it.

Firewall2 min read6 steps1 screenshots

What is the Great Firewall?

The Great Firewall is the nickname for the internet filtering system in mainland China. A firewall is a guard that decides which connections may pass. This guard can block some websites or make them very slow for visitors inside China. It does not affect visitors in other countries.

Your site may be blocked even if you did nothing wrong. Blocks can happen to a whole server address or to a domain name. A domain name is your website address, like example.com. An IP address is the number of the server where your site lives.

Signs of a block

  • Customers in China say the site does not load.
  • Your site works everywhere else.
  • Your traffic from China suddenly drops in your visitor statistics.

Steps to check

  1. First, make sure your site is not simply down. Open it on your phone using mobile data, outside your Wi-Fi.
  2. Search the web for "website blocked in China test" and open a free checker tool. Several free tools test a web address from servers inside China.
  3. Type your full web address in the tool and start the test.
  4. Read the result. Words like "blocked", "timeout" or "DNS pollution" suggest a block.
  5. Run the test two or three times on different days. Results can change.
  6. Ask a friend or customer in China to open your site and tell you what they see.
Tip: One tool alone can be wrong. Use at least two tools and one real person before you decide.

What can you do?

  • Check that your site does not share a server address with a banned site. Ask Hostvento support about your server address.
  • Avoid loading files from services that are often blocked in China, such as some fonts, videos or scripts from big foreign companies. Your site may be slow just because of them.
  • Host the needed files on your own site.
  • Think about a content delivery network (CDN) that has a presence in China. A CDN keeps copies of your site in many places around the world. Rules in China are strict, so check the requirements first.

Hostvento support can check your server's side of things. Open a support ticket and include the results of your tests.

Quick recap

  • China filters some sites with the Great Firewall.
  • Rule out downtime first.
  • Use free China test tools and ask a real visitor.
    Screenshot: Use free China test tools and ask a real visitor.
  • Remove slow outside scripts and fonts.
  • Ask support for help with your server address.