This article covers a free web service that allows you to check how a website looks in China vs US. As you probably already know, China has very strict internet censorship. Most of the outside websites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are completely banned there. And, even though if a website is not banned, it goes through severe censorship and might load differently in China. Also, websites hosted on data servers from the US also seem to be banned.
Chinafy offers a free web tool that shows a visual comparison between how a website loads in China versus how it loads in the US. This tool shows the real-time website loading speed in California, USA vs Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Along with the visual loading comparison, it gives a summary covering loading time, page time, and resources. The summary is followed by a list of global website resources and resources that are not-loaded or blocked in China. With that said, let’s check it out in detail.
Also read: Calculate Carbon Footprint of Website to See Impact of Website on Planet
Check How A Website Looks in China vs US
Chinafy is basically a website optimization service that optimizes websites for the Chinese market. It offers a free Visual Speed Test tool where you can enter your website URL and check how it looks in China vs US.
When you start the test, it visually compares the real-time website loading in both countries. It shows the website loading in US California on the left compared to website loading in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. You can control the playback speed of the test to have a closer analysis.
Once the website is loaded in all the locations, it shows you a summary of the loading. It compares the total loading time, loaded page size, and the number of loaded resources for each location. The summary has a ‘Show Resources?’ option at the bottom which shows detailed resource-summary for all locations.
The resource-summary lists all the global resources of the website and all non-loaded resources in China. Both lists show resource name and size along with the time it took to load in the respective location (if it did load). This gives you a pretty clear idea about which resources you have to change in order to make your website fully accessible in China.
Wrap Up
The diversity between the internet in China and the rest of the world is escalating. At this point, China has its own version of the internet or ‘Splinternet’ that’s quite isolated from the rest of the world. Although it’s a very concerning issue for the open internet, it is also frustrating for developers and marketers. This Visual Speed Test tool by Chinafy can at least help developers and marketers to check how their website loads in China vs US which further help them to optimize their website for the Chinese market.
