How to keep your site unblocked in Mainland China
If you expect traffic from China, there is nothing worse than finding out that web visitors are unable to connect to your website. It is known that there are thousands and thousands of sites that are out of reach from Chinese visitors. Most of them are not specifically banned because of ill content, but rather victim of random blocking by the GFW, or because they share the same IP (shared hosting) with a site that has been blocked.
Many clients of well-known overseas hosting companies,such as Godaddy or Hostgator found out that their sites couldn’t be accessed in China. No oversea hosting company can guarantee their websites will always accessible in China. However, here are some ways that can increase your chances from not being cut from visitors located in mainland China:
1) Do not publish politically sensitive content.
2) Make sure that your host can move your site to a new server/IP address within a minimum time in case it happened that your site was blocked.
3) Choose a host who has a no-adult material policy. However, it doesn’t help much, because there are thousands of key words non-related with adult material might also trigger the GFW.
4) Get a dedicated IP, if you can afford it.
5) Host in China. Though it is not easy to find a trusted and stable hosting company with English speaking support in China, that is the best way to avoid being blocked by GFW. Some of my other sites targeting at Chinese audience are hosted by www.eblhost.cn. They are running well so far.
6) Make regular backups of your site, in case the worst was to happen.