Youku instead of YouTube, WeChat rather than Twitter, Baidu over Google. These are just a few of the tips for any foreign website aiming for a Chinese audience. To give a more holistic view for those who are hoping to bypass the “Great Firewall”, Chinese search giant Baidu is rolling out a new service in Japan which offers website operators a pre-evaluation to determine whether their site is optimized to run in China, Japanese media Nikkei Asian Review is reporting.
Obviously, the huge market and economy behind the “wall” are the biggest drivers for this launch. “The service is aimed at companies and local governments looking to take advantage of the sharp increase in Chinese visitors to Japan amid Beijing’s tightening internet censorship,” the report pointed out.
Baidu is offering the service with LXR, a Tokyo-based maker of Chinese-language sites. Beyond recommendations on shifting to local accessible services, the troubleshooting report addresses a range of problems, from failure to display content properly, slow downloads, improperly displayed fonts and difficulties in showing messages from social media sites. The search giant also helps customers create effective Chinese-language websites.
Although similar services already exist, this is the first time for a Chinese tech giant, which has close relations with the state and complies with government internet control, to launch this kind of diagnosis service. It is still not clear whether the company will make it available globally.