Your website often serves as the first touchpoint for prospective clients, suppliers, partners, and investors.
Over 90% of global websites suffer from performance issues in China due to blocked or slow-loading resources. Delays and timeouts can impact user confidence and impede your ability to serve clients in the world’s second-largest economy.
In this guide, we’ll unpack why your manufacturing website may be slow or inaccessible in China and how you can fix it.
Disclaimer: This guide is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Chinafy is not a legal or corporate advisory entity, and, given that every business is different, we suggest consulting with your internal legal counsel if you would like advice on any legal or compliance-related concerns, or alternatively we can connect you with one of our partners.
TL;DR
China compatibility: Over 90% of global websites load slowly in China, if at all, and are often missing key functionality like forms, videos, and more.
Primary obstacles: Manufacturing websites often include embedded tracking or design elements—such as Google APIs, analytics scripts, or certain font libraries—that are either blocked or significantly slowed in China. Even when only a few of these resources are present, their failure to load consistently can disrupt the loading of other resources on the page, even if those resources themselves are not problematic.
Potential solutions: To resolve code-based and infrastructure-based incompatibilities between your website and China’s internet environment, you need to consider third-party resources on your website, the means by which you’re delivering the content to the end user (i.e. a Content Delivery Network (CDN)).
Ongoing maintenance: China’s internet landscape is constantly evolving, so regular testing and updates are key.
Here are two tools you can try out to see how your site loads in China:
Global speed test - test your site from 18 servers around the world including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Visual speed test - watch and compare your site as it loads in real-time outside of versus within China.
Running these tests helps you spot where bottlenecks occur and sets a benchmark for any improvements you make later.
China is a global manufacturing powerhouse, contributing about 31% of the world’s total manufacturing output. If you’re seeking suppliers or end customers, ensuring your site is accessible in China can open doors to a massive industrial ecosystem.
Suppliers, distributors, and other manufacturing partners in China could use your website for product specs, compliance documents, and operational updates. A fully functional site streamlines communication and collaboration.
Manufacturing sales cycles can be lengthy, involving technical documents, CAD files, and complex product catalogs. If potential customers in China struggle to access these materials, you risk losing deals.
Business buyers and industrial clients often do extensive due diligence online before reaching out. A slow or inaccessible website might lead them to question your reliability or move on to a competitor.
A strong presence in China helps position your brand as a serious global player. By delivering a seamless web experience, you gain an edge over competitors that remain effectively inaccessible to Chinese audiences.
While some websites are officially blocked in China, most others simply just don’t work well because they’re not optimized for the Chinese internet. Those that suffer from poor performance in China do so due to two primary reasons: code incompatibility and infrastructure limitations as its specifically related to the China internet ecosystem.
Many manufacturing websites use third-party resources such as technical documentation hosted via Google Docs or Dropbox, CAD file previews relying on third-party scripts, marketing trackers (e.g., Google Analytics) and embedded videos (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo) to showcase product demos.
In China, some of these third-party resources may be blocked altogether, while others perform poorly and lead to long load times or time-outs. When a browser tries to retrieve blocked or restricted content, it gets “stuck,” leading to delays of 30 seconds or more.
Hosting your website outside of China creates additional latency due to the physical distance between your servers and the end users in China.
Even with global CDNs, the majority do not have Points of Presence (PoPs) by default inside China and so the distance still slows down site performance. Even if they do have Points of Presence inside of China, they’re not automatically included in your CDN package as you would still have to fulfill certain pre-requisites in order to leverage them.
Why it matters
Technical data sheets, 3D product configurators, and embedded videos may rely on hosts that are blocked or slow in China. Identifying and fixing these resources is crucial for smooth performance.
Common misconception
It would be easy to think that by removing the obvious third-party resources (like Google Maps or YouTube videos) from your website, the site would consequently load fast and fully in China.
However, the nature of China’s internet ecosystem means that the way third-party resources work in China differ and evolve over time so there is no one-off list or means to edit these resources. Changes will likely have to be made on an ongoing basis.
What you can do
Chinafy is a specialized solution that can identify third-party resources that are causing web performance issues for your site in China.
Chinafy will then replace, remove or optimize incompatible resources on a China-friendly version of your site.
This means you maintain your global site’s functionality everywhere else, while ensuring visitors in China see a version that runs efficiently and fully.
When a user accesses your website from China, the browser usually has to retrieve files from servers located outside of China, sometimes as far away as the US or Europe. This leads to slower load times, higher latency, or even timeouts, despite your site performing just fine in the rest of the world.
Common misconception
Misconceptions around CDNs tend to fall into two categories. Some people think:
That all global CDNs should make websites run well in China by default.
Many "global CDNs" don't have Points of Presence (PoPs) in China because using a CDN there requires meeting specific prerequisites. As a result, these CDNs often fail to address the infrastructure challenges faced by global websites.
That using only a CDN will make your website compatible with China’s internet environment.
CDNs don’t resolve code- or file-based issues relating to blocked or restricted third-party resources that could lead to your site still loading slowly or failing to load altogether.
What to do:
Using an onshore CDN will store and deliver your website’s content closer to end users in China, but because the servers are within mainland China, there are regulatory prerequisites to using them, including:
Obtaining an ICP filing or license
Establishing a local entity or partnering with a local provider
Registering your website with the Public Security Bureau (PSB)
Remaining compliant with China’s content regulations, such as data localization.
The decision to host your automotive website within China or use a China CDN is an organization-level decision. Irrespectively, it’s important to remember that it is not a silver bullet to a fast-performing website, as third-party resources can remain an issue.
Whether your automotive site is hosted offshore or onshore, Chinafy can be bolted onto your existing technical stack to achieve faster loading times, and more functional website experience.
Why it matters
Similar to using a China-compatible CDN, physically hosting your site in China can reduce latency on certain parts of your website. Keep in mind that if this is the same website serving global visitors, this may inadvertently worsen load times for users in other regions.
Common misconception
One of the common misconceptions of hosting onshore is that it’s simply a case of replicating the site on a server within China. The reality is that a move to an onshore host typically requires a simplification of the website, in addition to legal and regulatory requirements, as even China-hosted sites face functionality issues when certain files or code conflict with China’s internet.
What to do
If it makes sense to do so, hosting your financial service business’s website onshore has certain prerequisites:
ICP license: An ICP license or filing is mandatory if you want to host within China. This usually requires a local entity or a partnership with a Chinese company.
Legal structure: Some companies establish a Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE) or joint venture with a local Chinese company.
Ongoing compliance: Even with onshore hosting, be prepared to continually monitor changes in policies that may affect your content or domain. Manufacturing businesses may also face industry-specific approvals depending on the type of products being showcased or sold.
Why it matters
Manufacturing websites can be intricate, featuring interactive product catalogs, data sheets, and advanced technical resources. Your IT team may already have its hands full with ERP integrations, supply chain systems, and other internal projects and adding China web optimization to your team’s workload can be overwhelming without a streamlined solution.
Common misconception
Chinafy often gets compared to CDNs but Chinafy is not a CDN. Chinafy is the only China web compatibility solution able to intelligently identify, replace or remove blocked or slow resources for your visitors in China on an ongoing basis so that your site loads fast, and fully.
Generates a version of your website for China visitors without affecting your current site.
Combines both in-person and platform-level features to detect and replace blocked or slow resources that cause loading delays.
Speeds up content delivery with a China-friendly CDN.
Typically, it takes only a couple of weeks to implement with minimal IT involvement. Variability will depend on the complexity of the site.
Chinafy is also compatible with most, if not all CMS platforms that you are currently using as our technology sits as a layer above your website.
Optimizing your manufacturing website for China is not a one-time project. The internet environment in China evolves quickly, and updates to your global site can reintroduce issues.
Here are two quick tips to stay on top of changes that could impact your site in China:
Periodic testing: Run speed tests - both synthetic and real user monitoring (RUM) - from multiple locations in China (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) on a frequent basis.
Stay informed on policy changes: Subscribe to relevant updates or rely on a trusted partner to keep you compliant with changing regulations.
By ensuring your manufacturing website is accessible and fast in China, you’ll better connect with partners, suppliers, and customers in one of the world’s largest manufacturing ecosystems.
If you’d like to discuss how Chinafy can help you optimize your site for China, get in touch with us today.