Only 6% of Chinese Sites Link to Foreign Sites
Some rather shocking statistics in Thomas Crampton’s blog entry China’s Internet rarely links to foreign websites: Out of 40 million external links on 5 million pages of 15,000 sites in China investigated, only 6% leave for websites geographically situated outside mainland China!
Professor Jonathan Zhu of City University of Hong Kong led this research into Chinese hyperlink behavior, which I came across on Tobias Escher’s excellent blog.
Escher qualifies the national/provincial distinctions based on a conversation with Zhu: “While this figure is more or less robust he tells me that the distinction between Home vs. Other provinces is still preliminary as it is based on geo-IP location. This might tell you where the server sits but not necessarily much about the “location” of the websites its been hosting. Therefore they are now trying to explore new methods including content mining.”
This could certainly be true; out of all links investigated (100%):
• 81% of them head for sites within the “home province”;
• 13% head for sites on “other provinces”;
• 6% go “overseas”.
It’s important here to note that “overseas” does not mean outside all of geographical Greater China. Inside Greater China, there are four customs territories: the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
When the PRC talks about “foreign” sites, it may choose to call them jingwai (境外), meaning sites outside the mainland only, or guowai (国外), meaning sites outside of Greater China altogether. (Sites in Singapore often end up as guowai sites, whereas sites in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan end up as jingwai sites. In the same vein, Taiwan considers mainland matters as jingwai, not guowai, matters.)
Most likely, those links going “overseas” are likely sites outside the mainland only. A fraction of that would go to real-world foreign sites like those in the US and Europe. Since mainland Chinese Internet law deals more with jingwai matters than guowai matters, “overseas” would most likely mean “places outside mainland China only” — like I said. Two reasons could probably explain why all that Chinese traffic isn’t heading for places beyond China’s borders (by means of those links, anyway)
• For legal reasons: China’s Internet law regarding Internet news forbids links to foreign news sites on mainland Chinese news sites unless Chinese State Council approval is obtained. Some sites spell out the URL of a foreign site (or even a domestic site), but they leave out the A HREF hyperlink. (The legal basis behind this is provided by Article 14 of the Interim Regulations Regarding News Services on Internet Websites — a 2000 law.)
• For geo-network reasons: If I’m not totally mistaken, the Web inside China feels more like an intranet. Why is it that I can access any local website “just like that” (click and go — truer words could not be uttered!), whereas a click on a link outside Chinese frontiers can create waits of up to 20 — sometimes even 30 — seconds and more? In fact, at some universities, access to sites located outside of geographical mainland China is blocked, period. (My blog! There goes my blog hosted on servers in the US!)
Although I haven’t mentioned it, a potential third barrier lies with the language barrier. Yes, Beijing’s getting the Olympics next year and Shanghai’s in with the 2010 World Expo, but that doesn’t mean that the world suddenly has 1.3 billion more English speakers. Go really local and speak to true locals in English — the response you might get is more along the lines of “My English very poor!” or “No speak English”.
Article taken from http://cn.blognation.com/
Professor Jonathan Zhu of City University of Hong Kong led this research into Chinese hyperlink behavior, which I came across on Tobias Escher’s excellent blog.
Escher qualifies the national/provincial distinctions based on a conversation with Zhu: “While this figure is more or less robust he tells me that the distinction between Home vs. Other provinces is still preliminary as it is based on geo-IP location. This might tell you where the server sits but not necessarily much about the “location” of the websites its been hosting. Therefore they are now trying to explore new methods including content mining.”
This could certainly be true; out of all links investigated (100%):
• 81% of them head for sites within the “home province”;
• 13% head for sites on “other provinces”;
• 6% go “overseas”.
It’s important here to note that “overseas” does not mean outside all of geographical Greater China. Inside Greater China, there are four customs territories: the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
When the PRC talks about “foreign” sites, it may choose to call them jingwai (境外), meaning sites outside the mainland only, or guowai (国外), meaning sites outside of Greater China altogether. (Sites in Singapore often end up as guowai sites, whereas sites in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan end up as jingwai sites. In the same vein, Taiwan considers mainland matters as jingwai, not guowai, matters.)
Most likely, those links going “overseas” are likely sites outside the mainland only. A fraction of that would go to real-world foreign sites like those in the US and Europe. Since mainland Chinese Internet law deals more with jingwai matters than guowai matters, “overseas” would most likely mean “places outside mainland China only” — like I said. Two reasons could probably explain why all that Chinese traffic isn’t heading for places beyond China’s borders (by means of those links, anyway)
• For legal reasons: China’s Internet law regarding Internet news forbids links to foreign news sites on mainland Chinese news sites unless Chinese State Council approval is obtained. Some sites spell out the URL of a foreign site (or even a domestic site), but they leave out the A HREF hyperlink. (The legal basis behind this is provided by Article 14 of the Interim Regulations Regarding News Services on Internet Websites — a 2000 law.)
• For geo-network reasons: If I’m not totally mistaken, the Web inside China feels more like an intranet. Why is it that I can access any local website “just like that” (click and go — truer words could not be uttered!), whereas a click on a link outside Chinese frontiers can create waits of up to 20 — sometimes even 30 — seconds and more? In fact, at some universities, access to sites located outside of geographical mainland China is blocked, period. (My blog! There goes my blog hosted on servers in the US!)
Although I haven’t mentioned it, a potential third barrier lies with the language barrier. Yes, Beijing’s getting the Olympics next year and Shanghai’s in with the 2010 World Expo, but that doesn’t mean that the world suddenly has 1.3 billion more English speakers. Go really local and speak to true locals in English — the response you might get is more along the lines of “My English very poor!” or “No speak English”.
Article taken from http://cn.blognation.com/
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