Chinese access of international internet sites

Chinese access of international Internet sites check list

Slow internet content; website, social media, APP, etc, response time can be due to many reasons.

Here are some pointers;

• Size of your internet content page in China

  - the large the internet content, the longer it will take to for your browser (Firefox, Chrome, IE, etc.) or APP to download internet content and fully display it on a screen.

Check your internet content page as seen from China – Internet site page test

• Size of your internet page (mobile) in China

  - The above point becomes even more important when your internet content is being accessed over a mobile network. Often a mobile network will have slower data download speeds than a Wi-Fi mobile connection.

Your internet content needs to be able to supply to a mobile; image, video, etc., in media sizes that fits the size of the mobile screen size.

A bigger size will just waste internet resources and time downing content that will be used. The mobile processing power will also be required to changing the size of the media to fit on the mobile screen.

• Internet content on different parts of the internet from China

  - In today’s "Cloud" services it is hard to know what is happening to your internet components. Often the parts (files) that go to create your internet content come from different parts of the internet.

On fast local internet connection, you do not see what is happening as internet page appears on your screen.

A simple example of this is social media contents. Your internet content will ask the social media company, e.g., Facebook, send the contents to your internet page. This will be coming from a different source on the internet, mostly likely in a different location in the world.

Most internet pages contents come from many locations from all over the world. Taking this approach your internet developer can create a content quickly. The downside, when you are accessing a data from China where the international performance can be very slow or blocked leaving missing information on your internet page.

Check the location of internet content - Internet site page test

• Slow / busy Chinese internet

  - The internet to and from China often runs slow including Hong Kong.

Within China historically the internet runs fast. The internet in China is beginning to slow down during peak usage e.g. during the working day, early evening when children come home from school, bad weather, etc.

To understand how the internet works - Chinese Internet Structure

Please remember to testing your internet content in China do it during peak usage - Internet site page test

• Chinese DNS lookup

  - Offer your internet content cannot be found at all from China without having to ask your browser a few times (press enter three or four times)

When looking for your internet content on the internet, the PC / tablet / mobile lookups the domain name(s) to find the location of your all your page contents i.e. where your internet content in hosted along with any third services used e.g. social media. This is like looking up a Post Code / Zip Code to see where someone lives.

In China, a local record where your domain can be found will most likely not existed. As request to the to the international internet is required. While this only takes a few seconds, it can result in your internet content not been displayed at all with “domain not found”.

For more information please see -  Chinese domain

• Chinese blocked internet content

  - Some internet content is blocked in China, mainly overseas third-party suppliers; social media, video channels, security routines, etc.

While this is a problem and makes a mess of your content display, the bigger problem it is where your internet content is not blocked just slowed down to so that your contents does not load at all. This can lock your internet page of data. This is offered the case with Google content.

A good example of content slowed down; Google fonts, Google analytics. The Chinese authorities will turn on and off these slowing down blocks from time to time, i.e. work one day not the next.

To see what is happening to your internet content, please see Internet site page test.

 last modified: Version 1.5 - 04 July 2019