This seems to be a silly question – “how to setup a website OUTSIDE China?” What to do with China when the website is outside China.
This is exactly the right answer. However, many (upt o 10) emails asked me about the procedure of setting up a website – in Chinese – outside China. The most recent inquiry comes from Santiago, Chile.
The major concern is the widely know (or infamous) Great Firewall, and the registration process in China. The short answer is, no. The registeration is only required for sites in China – nobody really explained what it means to be “in China”. Whether it is server in China or the owner in China? I don’t know and don’t have a law about it.
So if your site is out of China and you are out of China, don’t worry. Just go ahead to create your website according to the local regulations and laws.
However, there is a risk that your site is banned by the GFW, and people inside China cannot access the site. Please note: in this situation, people outside China can still access it, since the GFW is only placed on the major connection port between China and outside world. Your servers are outside the wall, and people in China are inside the wall.
What will tigger the ban? It is typically political or “sensitive” (according to a misterious standard). If you are commercial sites like B2B, or B2C, or informational about your product, don’t worry.
To future explain the situation, you still have the risk been banned if you host your website on the same server as other sites that the GFW don’t like. They ban sites based on IP address, and if you are not lucky, you are the victom. The solution is simple – change to another Internet provider, and you will be OK – as long as it is not your site that caused the ban.
That is the simple explaination of this urgly reality.
Yes, be aware of the hosting service. I used Yahoo!’s small business hosting service and found out all websites hosted there are blocked by Chinese government. Then I switched to bluehost.com and it works well.
Bluehost is not safe too. It was baned last month.
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hoilolah…
sometime, i want to read BBC news… that is impossible, but i can read CNN… absurd… as well i can not open wikipedia but i can open answer.com again absurd…
so i searched around the web till i found a nice solution that now a days make very easy to bypass the GFW
“operator” its free of any charge small great browser based on opera but using some proxy system… i installed it on my usb pen…. and jsut plug in at any computer that i am in from office or home… i read any website i want…. it allow u to open and surf anything can not be seen with a regular browser if u in China… as now in example i am posting with it… therefore my IP its not local.
how to report james Khooler’s illegal activity to the WGZ? we must do something to educate him, maybe put him into prison?
That good blog that you have, congratulations regards from Catalonia – Spain
can someone please tell me what is the algorithm used by the GFW folks to determine whether a web content is deemed “unhealthy” or “hostile” to whatever? or it remains a total urban myth, or the eighth wonder of the world? i just didn’t get it. i have yet find the wikipedia as nearly pornographic as the mainpages of those major chinese domestic websites. or i am just missing some serious trend of hippiness?