Ask HN: Where is all the web traffic from China?
2 comments
It is possible that you are getting visitors from China, but this would not be clear from your logs due to the use of proxies as a precaution.
The language barrier creates a great divide. It takes more effort to browse a foreign language site (even if one competent in that language). If one is browsing for leisure, or just following idle curiosity, this is enough to tip the scales against you. Added to that, distance makes browsing the web frustrating and flaky.
This also affects SEO. It is not necessarily clear which search terms will gain you a favourable ranking on Baidu, or how to spell them, or which system of writing will make your site visible to someone searching from China on your subject matter. Web dev (and programming in general) is an important topic in China, but web culture is very different in China in terms of page design and user interaction. Most of those issues will be already addressed in a more relevant and immediately practical way already by the Chinese competition.
You cannot rely on a 'build it and they will come' position. Right now China is in the exciting process of discovering itself through the mass communication of the web as it becomes available to the population in general, and not just the elite. It is like the wild west times at the inception of the world wide web in the West. They are forging a common culture of shared understanding, points of reference and even a distinct lingua-franca to facilitate communication between the different regions of China.
In short, the Chinese are not looking to the West right now because it is far more interesting and engaging to focus 'inwards' in what is happening in China. If you wish to draw a Chinese audience to your blog, you will have to immerse yourself in this emerging culture, discover which topics are of interest there, and learn how to communicate in the evolving local idiom. In short, you will have to grapple with the same barrier that keeps the Chinese from visiting your site.
I suspect that there are Chinese bloggers wondering as you are, why there are so few visitors from the West.
The language barrier creates a great divide. It takes more effort to browse a foreign language site (even if one competent in that language). If one is browsing for leisure, or just following idle curiosity, this is enough to tip the scales against you. Added to that, distance makes browsing the web frustrating and flaky.
This also affects SEO. It is not necessarily clear which search terms will gain you a favourable ranking on Baidu, or how to spell them, or which system of writing will make your site visible to someone searching from China on your subject matter. Web dev (and programming in general) is an important topic in China, but web culture is very different in China in terms of page design and user interaction. Most of those issues will be already addressed in a more relevant and immediately practical way already by the Chinese competition.
You cannot rely on a 'build it and they will come' position. Right now China is in the exciting process of discovering itself through the mass communication of the web as it becomes available to the population in general, and not just the elite. It is like the wild west times at the inception of the world wide web in the West. They are forging a common culture of shared understanding, points of reference and even a distinct lingua-franca to facilitate communication between the different regions of China.
In short, the Chinese are not looking to the West right now because it is far more interesting and engaging to focus 'inwards' in what is happening in China. If you wish to draw a Chinese audience to your blog, you will have to immerse yourself in this emerging culture, discover which topics are of interest there, and learn how to communicate in the evolving local idiom. In short, you will have to grapple with the same barrier that keeps the Chinese from visiting your site.
I suspect that there are Chinese bloggers wondering as you are, why there are so few visitors from the West.
Great response. I really appreciate it.
"Is it possible our site is blocked by the Great Firewall of China? How can we check?"
It is possible. Post your site URL as a comment here, or use one of these sites:
- http://www.blockedinchina.net/
- https://en.greatfire.org/
"Does Baidu not care much for indexing US or English speaking sites?"
When I search for stuff on the web, I search in English and expect results in English. Search engines don't usually return links to German pages, as I don't understand German. I would guess that someone entering search terms in Chinese would expect (and receive) results in Chinese.
I just searched Baidu for 'ruby' and got a mixture of English and Chinese results. I then searched for 'ruby 怎么用' (how to use ruby) and got all Chinese results.
"Maybe web dev isn't as popular in China as other places in the world?"
That seems unlikely. China has more internet users than any other country. Also, those people are predominantly using Chinese-languages sites, developed in China.
"Language barrier and lack of site language options?"
Yup.
It is possible. Post your site URL as a comment here, or use one of these sites:
- http://www.blockedinchina.net/
- https://en.greatfire.org/
"Does Baidu not care much for indexing US or English speaking sites?"
When I search for stuff on the web, I search in English and expect results in English. Search engines don't usually return links to German pages, as I don't understand German. I would guess that someone entering search terms in Chinese would expect (and receive) results in Chinese.
I just searched Baidu for 'ruby' and got a mixture of English and Chinese results. I then searched for 'ruby 怎么用' (how to use ruby) and got all Chinese results.
"Maybe web dev isn't as popular in China as other places in the world?"
That seems unlikely. China has more internet users than any other country. Also, those people are predominantly using Chinese-languages sites, developed in China.
"Language barrier and lack of site language options?"
Yup.
I help run a small web blog and have been messing around in the analytics a bit. Despite getting a good amount of traffic from all over the world, we get almost no visitors from China - social, organic search, or referral.
So what's going on here?
- Is it possible our site is blocked by the Great Firewall of China? How can we check?
- Does Baidu not care much for indexing US or English speaking sites?
- Maybe web dev isn't as popular in China as other places in the world?
- Language barrier and lack of site language options?
Thanks guys. Any suggestions on how to improve this would be helpful. Would love any insight on the topic.