Apr 2, 2007

Is your website 'China proof'?

China has the Great Wall that can be seen from outer space, but at the same time they have the Great Firewall, that do not allow many many many websites to be seen in China (this is in fact one of them, probably because it is hosted in blogger.com, owned by Google).

So a group came up with a way to test which sites are available and which are not. Results are not 100% accurate, of course, but if you test on different days and all the time you get the same results, it is probably accurate.

To test, you just have to enter your URL. Just one warning: after you get your results, if they are positive, don't bother with the "'click here' to view the site in China", so far I wasn't able to see anything but blank pages.

But I sent them an email already, if that gets fixed, I will let you know!

Meanwhile, you can go to the Great Firewall of China and test your website availability!

1 comment:

Rafal Bergman said...

Thanks for the great link. But I have to report that the site (though its idea is great) is not reliable.

I just came back from China and were using Internet there. Now I tested the web pages that I was using in China using the Great Firewall. And the site showed many of the portals that were accessible without a problem there as blocked. While some other sites, like Flikr, were shown as available, which is just partially true, as you can access Flikr in China, but you won't see any pictures (ok, I agree that the site may not be designed for such nuances, also if the "see web page in China" option worked it would be ok - but it still doesn't).

So I guess they have to work a bit more on the Great Firewall of China. Which may be understandable, as I think it took a bit more effort to build the Great Wall of China :)