Getting started in China

Do's and dont's?

[pmkpmk]

We want to create a microsite for Chinese users, containing an overview of our company and our products. Apart from setting the page up, there are a few more questions:

Domains
- Do you need a .cn or a .com.cn? Which is better?
- Or does a .com work as well?
- I got a quote about 15 EUR / month for either .cn or .com.cn - is that realistic?

Hosting
- Are there any possibilities of hosting in China?
- Is it necessary, or will hosting in Western Europe work as well?

Search Engines
- google.cn is not what one expects it to be - so who are the players in China?

Culture
- Any big DONT'S for a company website, like e.g. naming a woman as CEO or using e.g. the color green?
- Any really important DO'S, like e.g. showing a picture of the company office building?

Laws
- Anything a Chinese website is required to contain by law, like e.g. birthdate of the CEO?

Any help would be appreciated!

[bill]

Domains

I've done fine on one site with a plain old .com domain hosted outside China. I still see a lot of companies in the Chinese SERPs that use the plain old .com domains.

However, best practice would probably be to use a second level .cn domain. The older .com.cn domains do not seem to be very popular with new sites. Most of the sites that use them seem to be older sites that have had the same domain since before the .cn domains became available.

I've been paying between US$37-$60 /year for my .cn domains. Registrars vary, but €15/month seems a bit high.

Hosting

Hosting inside China can have some difficulties associated with it, like registering with the local police. Although I did look into hosting in China I found it easier and cheaper to host elsewhere.

Search Engines

Other than Google your top players are Baidu, Yahoo (3721.com and Yisou) and Zhongsou.

I'm sure some of our members from China could help out with the other questions better than I.

[pmkpmk]

Thanks! Guess I need to get a second quote on the pricing then.

I didn't understand your comment on ".cn" vs ".com.cn" though.... May company name is available as ".cn", but is already taken as ".com.cn" - so can I go for ".cn"?

And any other help regarding cultural trapdoors will be appreciated!

[worldmaster]

You don't have to get a .cn to serve Chinese audience. A .com works perfectly. Hosting in the US is OK. We have sites that Chinese visitors can access with no problem.

Certainly you need to be a little careful in choosing a domain name and your Chinese contents have to be written by a Chinese writer. You can't translate with translation software. That won't help you at all.

[pmkpmk]

Well, the server would be in Western Europe. Is there any way to find out if it can be reached from mainland china? Content will come from a native speaker (hooray for internships), and we have a partner in Taiwan to proofread it.

[bill]

I didn't understand your comment on ".cn" vs ".com.cn" though.... May company name is available as ".cn", but is already taken as ".com.cn" - so can I go for ".cn"?

As worldmaster and I mentioned, a .com will do just fine in the China market. If the second level .cn is available I'd suggest you pick that up as well.

.com.cn was just about the only choice available for a local domain in China until the .cn name-space was opened up.

Is there any way to find out if it can be reached from mainland china?

I put some links in message #4 of this thread Domains Blocked by China [webmasterworld.com] that point to some research about URL filtering in China from the people at Harvard. That's a good way to research whether you're blocked in China. However a simpler way would just be to ask some people in China to check connectivity to your site.

we have a partner in Taiwan to proofread it

You are aware that the Chinese language used on the mainland and in Taiwan are different? The mainland uses what is called Simplified Chinese, while Taiwan and Hong Kong use Traditional Chinese. These require different language skills and different encodings for your site.

Although it's good to get the site translated by a native speaker, sometimes it's worth the extra effort to get the work copywritten in the native language as well. Be aware that although a translation of your existing content may be sufficient there are often times when that won't be effective. For example, a US targeted site may have a very forceful sell to it, but translated to a European or Asian language that may come across the wrong way for that market. If you can, get a local market expert to go over and possibly rewrite some of your content.

[redstorm]

As a Chinese living in Mainland China,i'd like to answer your questions. What Bill and Worldmaster said are very advisable. i'd like to fill what the lost in answering your question to make the replies perfect.

search engine: instead of www.google.cn, google china(you can have a search on www.google.com by search terms of google china) is an important player in SE market. you can not overlook google china if you want to make some promotion works here.
culture: that's an invisible barrier for most foreigners. sometimes it's hard to describle. what you mentioned seems not as serious as you think. maybe i can give you feedbacks after the completion of your site.
law: in most time, the law does not tell you what you should do, instead it tells us what we can not do. I think if you do not do what is prohibited by the law, the law will not effect on you as well as you site.
hope the anwere will satisfy you.

[goldmonkey]

I am a chinese.
Your site must translate into chinese.So people can visit your site easy. etc...

[torstenjurisch]

"Other than Google your top players are Baidu, Yahoo (3721.com and Yisou) and Zhongsou."

Hallo,

Could someone rank the search engines by number of users or market share?

[newsphinx]

According to a third party company Tracq, top 3 players in Chinese search market are Baidu (33.06%), 3721(28.56%), Google(20.2%). While Zhongsou only shares 0.15% search traffic, a minor market share far behind search unit of other web properties like Sohu, Sina, and etc.

Hosting a site out of China is cheaper. But Chinese users may have access difficulties. Hosting a site in China requires you to summit your site record to Chinese authorities, which is introduced very recently and is very troublesome. Otherwise your site may be shut down at any time.

[bill]

Don't confuse portals and search engines here. Sohu and Sina are portals. They use other company's search technology. This Tracq report may not be breaking the market down this way...in fact I'm not sure what criteria they're using here.

[beautykat]

I came across this thread and is interested to know that there are some native Chinese discussing in here.

I currently have a US website selling to the US market. China market is one where we have been interested in getting into. Payment and delivery of orders are some of the primary concerns we have right now. Can someone shed some light into this? Like how payment is done? Security of delivery?

[guoqi]

>>>>I currently have a US website selling to the US market. China market is one where we have been interested in getting into. Payment and delivery of orders are some of the primary concerns we have right now. Can someone shed some light into this? Like how payment is done? Security of delivery?

There are enough native Chinese here! Although most of the time, I still staying in Europe.

In China, there are many ways of online payment! Most of people use online bank transfer, the next popular payment method is paying by mobile phone. Very few people using credit card for online payment. If you want to sell something to China, maybe you have to establish a Chinese bank account, but then you will not be able to get your money out of China. (I am not very sure).

>> Security of delivery. I am not sure what you want for serurity. If you ship by UPS or DHL, receiver always has to sign it. That is secure. If you ship by normal post office, I guess there is no guarantee.

[virago]

You can also think of a creative domain name. Best to include a native Chinese in this. If you use english or pinyin it can be written wrong or problems remembering it.

For example, a recruitment portal which is very popular in China has the domain, 51job.com. Well you might think 51job is hard to remember for a Chinese, not so.

51 when you say in Chinese is 'wu yao' but it sounds similar to 'wo yao' or translated to english, 'I want' so 'I want job' is the meaning.

Quite clever when you think of it. So domain names using numbers, pinyin (pinyin is phonetic language of Chinese using the english alphabet) and english is all common in China.

Registering a domain name (.cn) is around 250 RMB a year in China or around $40US.

Hope that helps and post the link here when you finished with it.

[farawaystar]

.cn is better.

[jimpoo]

.cn cost as lower as ￥46/year (about US$5.7/year)

According iResearch June 2005 reports:
BaiDu.com - 37.4%
Yahoo ( yisou, 3721 ) - 32.2%
Google - 19.1%

Google's share are dropping.
According to the reports, 49.1% Chinese use browser address bar to enter search words. The 'Address Bar Search' is dominated by BaiDu and 3721, it is insinuative that the Chinese Software Center highlights BaiDu and 3721 are the biggest Spyware in China :-)