China CDN: How to Make Your Website Load Faster in China
Updated on |By QPSoftware
A China CDN copies your pages to servers inside mainland China, so visitors load them from a nearby node instead of an origin abroad. CDN nodes in mainland China require an ICP filing for your domain. Without one, a CDN with nodes in Hong Kong helps, but removing blocked resources matters as much.
Key takeaways
- A slow website in China loses visitors and rankings: aim for a load time within 3 seconds.
- A content delivery network (CDN) with nodes inside mainland China gives the best speed, and it requires an ICP filing.
- Cloudflare’s China Network runs on mainland data centers operated by JD Cloud, as a separate subscription for Enterprise plan customers.
- Without an ICP filing, use a CDN with nodes in Hong Kong, host close to China, and remove the resources that are blocked in China.
A slow website in China can hurt your business. It may not kill it, but it limits its visibility and its performance, and it costs you revenue. A fast website does not happen overnight either: it comes from a close analysis of your website’s performance, then from the right tools, including a few that are specific to China.
Why Does Website Speed Matter in China?
Website speed has been discussed for years, and opinions still differ on the ideal load time. Many reports point to a 1-second load time as the goal. That would be ideal, but few websites achieve it.
In our experience optimizing websites, an average load time within 3 seconds is a realistic target that keeps business performance strong. The further a website goes beyond it, the more the business suffers.
Why is speed critical for a website or an e-commerce store in China?
The first reason is user experience. If your page takes too long to load, visitors leave for your competitors. According to a study reported by Hospitality Technology, 57% of users abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
The second reason is search. Google states that its Core Web Vitals, which include a loading metric (Largest Contentful Paint, to keep within 2.5 seconds), are used by its ranking systems (Google Search Central). A slow page also raises the bounce rate, and a site that ranks lower gets fewer visitors.
The third reason is mobile. A heavy website is a poor experience on a phone, and mobile devices carry a large share of web traffic in China, so optimizing your loading speed for China pays off twice.
What Is a China CDN and How Does It Work?
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers spread across chosen regions that delivers your content faster.
Visitors connect to your pages from many locations, sometimes far from the server that hosts your website. The longer the distance, the slower the page. A CDN copies your content to several servers, around the world or in a specific region, so each visitor receives it from the server closest to them instead of the origin server.
A China CDN applies the same idea inside the country: its nodes sit in mainland Chinese cities, close to your visitors.
Why Is a CDN So Important in China?
China is a large country with its own internet architecture. Most users connect through one of three major carriers, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, and the connection between their networks has long been a source of latency. Performance also varies by region: a page can load fast in Shanghai and much more slowly in another city.
Traffic that comes from abroad adds another obstacle. Cloudflare, for instance, notes that traffic routed through servers outside the country faces significant latency and reliability issues due to China’s network boundaries (Cloudflare China Network documentation). A CDN with nodes across mainland China spreads your content inside the country, which avoids that crossing for every visit.
Which CDN Options Work in China?
The first question is whether your domain has an ICP filing, because a CDN with nodes in mainland China requires one.
| CDN option | ICP filing | Where the nodes are | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare China Network | Required for each apex domain | Mainland data centers operated by JD Cloud | Enterprise plan customers who already use Cloudflare |
| CDN of a Chinese cloud provider | Required | Mainland China | Websites hosted on Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud or another Chinese cloud |
| CDN with Hong Kong nodes | Not required | Hong Kong and nearby regions | Companies without an entity in China |
Cloudflare China Network
Cloudflare runs selected performance and security products on data centers located in mainland China, operated by its partner JD Cloud. The service is a separate subscription for customers on an Enterprise plan, and you need a valid ICP filing or license for each apex domain you add to it. Once it is set up, visitors in China are served from inside the country.
The CDN of a Chinese cloud provider
When your website is already hosted on a Chinese cloud, its CDN is the natural choice: the account and the ICP filing are already in place. Our guide to cloud hosting in China compares Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and the other providers.
A CDN with nodes in Hong Kong
Without an ICP filing, keep your server and use a CDN with points of presence in Hong Kong. It shortens the distance to mainland visitors, but it cannot match nodes inside China.
The ICP filing is issued under the rules of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and a foreign company completes it through an entity registered in China: our ICP license guide explains the permits, and our ICP license and China hosting consulting team can help you through the process.
What Else Makes a Website Faster in China?
A CDN is not enough on its own. A few other optimizations matter for a website that performs well in China.
Host your website in China
A server in mainland China avoids the cross-border link, which makes your site faster and helps your SEO for China. Hosting in Hong Kong is a common alternative when you have no entity in China, but mainland hosting remains faster for mainland visitors. Our guide explains how to host a website in China, from the decision to the ICP filing.
Avoid blocked elements
The Chinese internet works differently, and some of the tools you use elsewhere do not work there. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube embeds, Google Maps and other Google-hosted resources are blocked or unreliable in China. Besides not working, they slow your whole page down while the browser waits for them. Our article on why a website does not work in China lists the usual culprits and their fixes.
Replace these platforms with local ones, such as WeChat, Youku, Sina Weibo or Baidu Maps. Baidu leads search in China, and our Baidu SEO guide explains how to rank on it.
Keep your pages light
The usual optimizations count even more in China: faster DNS, compressed images, fewer server requests, optimized CSS and JavaScript, and browser caching.
What Should You Do Next?
Start by testing your pages from inside mainland China, then decide on a CDN: mainland nodes if your domain has an ICP filing, Hong Kong nodes if it does not. Remove the blocked resources in both cases.
QPSoftware is a digital agency in Shanghai, founded in 2009. We can help you improve your website’s load time, choose and set up a CDN, and make your website work in China for your users. Contact us today and we will explain how to optimize your website for China.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I make my website load faster in China?
Serve your pages from inside China or as close as possible: a mainland server or a China CDN if your domain has an ICP filing, a CDN with Hong Kong nodes if it does not. Then remove the resources that are blocked in China, such as Google Maps or YouTube embeds, and compress your images, scripts and style sheets.
Do I need an ICP license to use a CDN in China?
Yes, for a CDN with nodes in mainland China. Cloudflare, for instance, requires a valid ICP filing or license for each apex domain added to its China Network. A company only needs the ICP filing for most websites, and a foreign company completes it through an entity registered in China. A CDN with nodes in Hong Kong does not require one.
Does Cloudflare work in China?
Cloudflare offers a China Network that runs selected products on mainland data centers operated by JD Cloud. It is a separate subscription for Enterprise plan customers, and each apex domain needs an ICP filing or license. Without it, Cloudflare notes that traffic routed through servers outside China faces significant latency and reliability issues.
Do .cn domains load faster in China?
Not by themselves. Speed depends on where your pages are served from and on what they load, not on the domain extension. A domain with another extension, hosted in mainland China with an ICP filing, can load faster than a .cn domain hosted abroad. What matters is the server, the CDN and the removal of blocked resources.
