China web hosting is complex, and in this article we'll look at your options on how to deliver your site fast, and efficiently. Some options take 2-3 months, one option takes about 24 hours, each with its pros and cons. 

Background

The key reasons around web hosting typically revolve around i) Speed, and ii) Legality. 

When most people research China web hosting, they come across countless articles telling them that they'll need to acquire an ICP Licence, a process which generally takes 1-3 months. This isn't true. 

Well - strictly speaking, it is true, but the question you should be asking yourself is "do you need an ICP Licence?" and for 99.9% of companies, the answer is 'no'. 

Do you need an ICP Licence? 

An ICP licence is pretty much needed (we're generalising and will leave the nuances for another time) only if:
i) You're building a tech company centered entirely around Chinese users, or
ii) You're an e-commerce company building out an entire onshore presence, including logistics, service centre, and a complete set of onshore advertising 

It may be helpful to get an ICP license depending nature of your website.

But one thing is certain: If the objective is to get a faster site, getting an ICP is not the final answer (more on this below).

Need an ICP? Or still not sure?
Contact Chinafy's ICP Support to enquire more.

Onshore Hosting

If you can't read Chinese, then you're left with primarily two companies you should host with (we're assuming you're hosting a website, and not a building a full web app): 

1. Alibaba Cloud: Preferred over Tencent with their more extensive CDN

2. Tencent Cloud: Still technically a strong provider although we find their interface is poorly translated (as of Jan 2020) often the result of machine translation. 

There are a number of other companies like west.cn, xinnet, bizcn, 22.cn, but these require a native mandarin speaker/reader. Alibaba and Tencent are both friendly-enough for any offshore developer, where you can acquire your SSL, set up a CDN and they help you acquire and/or transfer the ICP licence although the process is still rather messy and will take 1-3 months. 

For the avoidance of doubt, hosting in Hong Kong isn't a solution as the site's pages are still incompatible in China. 

Want to host websites in China?
We partner with the industry's best to host your site in China, at your option. 

That said, hosting your site in China doesn't automatically make it work there.

Offshore Solution (with Onshore Performance)

Sites typically don't work onshore for two reasons: i) Compatibility, as they rely on the U.S. library files/components, and ii) Speed, as they are delivered on the U.S. networks. To work around this, you need to address these components separately. Namely, you'll need to:

i) Remove third-party resources and host them locally, and 

ii) Use a Chinese CDN

This is largely impossible if you're on Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify. If you're a developer, on Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla, it may be possible to some degree but doing so with a large site is incredibly complex and raises the question of how you intend to update such a modified site on a regular basis. 

For all the work and time involved, it's far simpler to just Chinafy your site. 

How does Chinafy Work? 

Chinafying bolts onto your site as a Full China Compatibility and Speed solution, allowing you to build your site however you like, and host it wherever you like. It works as follows: 

Step 1: Duplicate your Site

Chinafy Duplicates the Public instance of your site, sets up IP-based redirection and then modifies the Chinese version for the Chinese Visitor. 

This ensures that your global site is untouched, unchanged, and completely independent of the China version. 

Step 2: Identify, Extract, and Replace Resources

This second step continually involves replacing Slow, or Blocked Components with onshore equivalents (where possible), using higher-level compression, and moving all assets onto a single domain to avoid not only multiple TCP/SSL handshakes, but slow networks.

Step 3: Automation

Chinafy then automates the (Identification, Extraction and Replacement) process allowing any future modifications to the Global site to be addressed seamlessly. For example, if you were to add a blog post with a Youtube video, this page is automatically identified and addressed within minutes on the Chinese version.

Step 4: Infratructure & Content Delivery

The final step is to deliver all files on the new Chinese site down optimized Chinese networks.

How Long Does It Take? 

Chinafying a site yourself typically takes 18-24 months to do, but with our subscription, it happens overnight, or in some cases - hours. 

At Chinafy, optimising a site for China takes <2 weeks.

With all the optimisations in this process, most sites end up with near-native onshore performance loading within a 3-5 seconds. This is all without having to spend months applying for the ICP, not-to-mention, having to build out a system to now synchronize your global website, with your Chinese website. 

Still thinking about hosting in China?
Now, think Chinafy.

Click "Get Started" to send us your website.