Buying hosting in China: why you need it and how difficult it is

Today I want to tell the respected Habra 客 about buying Chinese hosting, servers, a special license for Internet activities, censorship in China. And even a few words about the clouds I can find.

Why do you need hosting in China?

To begin with, we take a completely logical question: why place a website in China? Here are the main reasons for this:
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1. Slow loading site

The fact of the day: in China, foreign sites are opening very slowly. If Chinese websites, which sometimes due to uncompressed images and flash can weigh up to 50 megabytes, open within a couple of seconds, then all foreign sites here load extremely extremely slowly. Sites that are located in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Singapore (more about them below) are loaded a little faster. Causes: features of the structure of the Chinese Internet and the intentional restriction of the channel for foreign traffic.

Therefore, if you want your website to open for the people of China quickly - place it in China.

2. Poor SEO impact

Baidu, as well as Google, assess the availability of the site and the speed of its response (ping), which is taken into account when ranking in the search results. And if the site is abroad = poor accessibility = poor indexing and far in the search results.

3. The constant risk of being blocked in China

If in Russia people are just beginning to get used to the “Black List” of Roskomnadzor sites, then in China they have been living with this since the advent of the Internet. True, over time, all sites that have not been licensed by the ICP have been placed on the informal gray list and are under constant risk of being blocked in China. It must be said that the Chinese block websites indiscriminately, sometimes immediately by IP address. And this means that if your site is on a shared hosting (where thousands of other resources can also be located), then one “offender site” on this IP could be the reason for blocking all the others.

Services to check the availability of your website in China
- www.greatfirewallofchina.org
- viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/
- www.websitepulse.com
- www.just-ping.com

Breaking the rules and getting banned on the Chinese Internet is not very difficult. Sometimes an unsuccessful combination of words on one page (especially in Chinese or English) can cause blocking.

How to avoid blocking a site in China

1. Use a VPS or dedicated server with a unique IP.

2. Avoid publishing political material. Especially in Chinese and English (it is not necessary, I think, to clarify that the publication of anti-state, illegal and other materials - 100% ban).

3. Avoid the publication of “sensitive” materials (for example, the mention on the Internet of the names of some officials - an instant ban).

4. Do not publish porn and gambling-related content.

How to buy hosting in China?

Buying hosting or renting a server in China is no more difficult than doing it abroad. Look for Chinese hosting companies on Google or Baidu, or go directly to the Chinese counterpart RU-CENTER - WWW.NET.CN (中国 万 网). I will not talk about hosting prices: they are different and are not the subject of this article.

The only and main problem you will encounter is obtaining an ICP license. In short: if you buy a hosting / server in China, you definitely need to receive it. You can register and pay for hosting, but the site will not open until you provide an ICP number. However, some hosting providers may offer three to five days of access for test work without a license.

HabraHelp: What is an ICP license?

The ICP license is a permit issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information of China, which entitles Internet sites to officially operate in China. ICP license numbers can be found in the “basement” of most Chinese sites.



An ICP license is required for: (a) registering a site in the .cn zone; (b) hosting / server purchases in China; (c) participation in the Baidu advertising network; (d) conducting legal Internet business in the PRC.

ICP license is NOT needed for sites located on foreign servers (BUT! .Com site located in China must be licensed).

You can be released from a license in two cases:

• The domain is not used for the site (it happens sometimes).
• Domain is used on the site, which is located on the server abroad.

However, in both cases you need to submit a corresponding application through the site.

How to get an ICP license in China and how much does it cost?

^{Brief instructions for obtaining ICP license}

The license itself is free, however, the conditions you must meet may cost you a fair amount of money. Registration is carried out at www.miibeian.gov.cn or through the website of the hosting company. It includes confirmation of your email address, cell phone, and sending documents proving your identity and legal status of your company (are you a simple or Internet company? Do you have an ecommerce license? Does the company have a share capital?) .

If you do not have a Chinese legal entity, then there are partnership options with local companies specifically for the purchase of hosting in China. And if you are lucky and you are a citizen of China, then you can get a personal license, under which to sell something on the Internet is not entirely legal.

Alternative to hosting in China

If you do not have the opportunity to place your website in China, then I recommend looking at the nearest Asian countries: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The speed of connection with these countries is much faster than other countries. Nevertheless, my experience shows that such options are still inferior in speed and indexing sites that are located in China. But as a temporary option - quite.

A couple of words about the clouds

About the Chinese "cloud" hosting I really nothing to say. You will again need an ICP license to use them. From notable players in this market (analogues of Amazon Web Services): AliYun (from the Internet giant Alibaba / Taobao), Baidu.Yun and Giant Cloud .

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As always, I look forward to your comments, additions and questions.