Si & I arrived late last night in Xi'an, in the Shaanxi province after 26+ hours of travel (which I don't recommend). Of course, I'm already set up online, trying to respond to dozens of emails, despite the use of an auto-responder. I think I'm feeling some empathy with Matt Cutts :)
While here, I couldn't help myself but to conduct one of the most talked-about searches in regards to China - Tian An Men Square. Here's a screenshot of my results:
As you can see, the Wikipedia results and the Christusrex.org content clearly violate what I had presumed were China's government guidelines on displaying search results in the country regarding the incident. Note this article from Danny at SEW from January of last year.
Has something changed? Or am I just able to see this because I have a western computer and am connecting from a western hotel (the Sofitel)?
p.s. More to come from China as I'm able, but I'm hoping to spend as little time online as possible (and as much exploring as I possibly can).
p.p.s. For those who are interested, I had a brief interview last week with Dave Rigotti that's now online.
No censorship? You must be kidding! :)
Chinese Google and Wikipedia
Try a Chinese character search for Tiananmen Square (å¤©å®‰é–€å»£å ´) on Google.cn
The wikipedia result comes up first for Chinese users as Stone-China already noted.
However if you dive deeper into the Chinese Wikipedia, certain sections are censored for users based in China. For example, one way that the Chinese refer to the Tiananmen Square protest is via the actual date (å…四事件).
The wiki page for the protest date is here.
This is what a Chinese user sees:
This is what we see.
Interesting isn't it? The Chinese in the first image translates as "Users from China may not be able to access Wikipedia. etc etc."
When searching Google CN, you will see this line at the bottom of the SERPs:
æ®å½“地法律法规和政ç–，部分æœç´¢ç»“果未予显示
Which translates to "as a result of the local law restrictions and policies, some search results are not shown".
Last but not least, a user in Hong Kong gets redirected to google.hk when they type in google.cn
Thanks to my HK and Chinese search brethren for helping out with some of the screenshots and translation. Some of them were genuinely scared and nervous of passing on this information. WTF!
Aren't you glad we live in countries that respect freedom of speech and opinions? ;)
Mr Brin has admitted that the censorship was a 'net negative' but if you want to play in the biggest marketplace in the world (apparently China will have more English speakers than any other country in the near future), you have to make certain sacrifices...
Shor once again delivers the most substantially amazing comments the world has ever known. You rock, dude!
Thanks Scott. You guys stack'em up, I just knock'em down ;)
Hi, I'm from China.
It appears China relents or the filter gets a glitch. If it's the former case, a transform in Internet policy may be underway. Otherwise the supportive energy against suppressing truth is becoming too powerful.
For my own part, I don't really care. I dig out whatever I want (thanks to search engines, website contributors, and limitation of servers). There's more than one route to fetch a page.
Something strange hit me yesterday. I searched on Google and got a page that doesn't contained or relate to the search term in any way. Then I checked and discovered an inbound link that bears the term. This reminds me of that Google does not just rely on simple existing relevancy, but builds new relevancy itself. The outcome is a page is found not absolutely by what the author names it but possibly by what most people call it.
For many westerners "tian an men square" stands for "tiananmen incident". The opinion even overrides Tian An Men as a place for tour, which is largely mentioned in China. That's probably why the wiki result becomes atop, but not description about the structure's history, spectacularity, etc. In a way it's the result of poll. Google thinks as the great majority think.
Try the following go to your google search egine search for google.cn then click on "cached" when that window opens. Enter your search times in the chineses google. I bet you get different results.
I assume you did a search on the Google.com domain.
The results for this English search are not filtered, it just so happens that when you click the Wikipedia result in China you end up into oblivion as Wikipedia is blocked.
It has nothing to do with using a Western computer or surfing from a Western hotel in this situation.
It also has nothing to do, as Wellwrittenwords comments that "There's hardly any doubt that these results are specially filtered for foreigners."
There is no special "Foreigner" filtering. There is filtering or no filtering which can be language based, domain based and location based.Searches in English are treated differently than searches in Chinese.
I just did a Chinese search on the Google.com domain for Tiananmen and got a white page. The same search on Google.cn gave me a lot of touristy results.
English searches on Google.cn are also treated differently from English searches on Google.com from within China.
Stone-china's comment that more things have happened during history on Tiananmen is true. Then again that's not something Google takes into account I think when they deliver results.
The number of backlinks normally plays a more important role by determining the results but here the filtering undo's much of that.
It's at times a rather confusing situation search wise.
I recently wrote an article for Search Engine Journal trying to make a comparison for Google China related domains and search
I have to add that my searches where all done from Shanghai and there can be even regional differences.
If anyone from within China has different experiences I love to hear them.
Rand, welcome to China and I hope to have a chance to meet you in Xiamen.
Welcome to China, Rand and Si!
I arrived today from Korea - make sure you look me up when you get the Beijing - I'm in room 903 at the hotel.
Yep, China is still censored, though this trip I'm able to see my Blogger-based blog, so at least that's improved. I've talked to various Chinese about Tien An Men , and the responses include:
1. Since google.cn is aimed at locals and give preference (like all Google local results) to local .cn sites, naturally the 1989 demonstrations don't show up as much, since local sites don't/can't talk about it as much.
2. "Tien An Men is an important part of China, and showing only the massacre stories is actually biased" (fair enough, though that says more about popularity based ranking methods than censorship, IMO).
3. "Maybe, but we never search for that anyway - we'd rather search for new business opportunities". I think this is my favorite quote. I'm still not sure how to respond to it.
All countries censor (though in the US it's mostly self censorship in order to avoid appearing un-patriotic), but China does have some sore spots (like Tien An Men) that it exercises at an unreasonable level, IMO.
At the same time, I've also seen incredibly direct complaints and accusations leveled by Chinese bloggers and citizens at both government and companies that would never be aired in the west due to threat of lawsuits or other retribution, so there is some hope, I suppose, though a weak legal system is hardly cause for celebration.
It's a different world over here. One thing I would caution others against is judging the average Chinese by their government. Not everyone agrees with the actions or opinions of the government they live under, even in overt democracies where it's supposed to be the case, in theory, that at least most do...
Ian
Rand must be so glad to find out that so many Chinese fellows in this industry reading this blog, and respond to this blog.
I guess most of Chinese include myself are always keeping low profile and little bit hesitating to involve discussion, especially in English.:)
I have been visiting this site for nearly two years, I enjoy the transparent and open style Rand runs his business, I would say your blog is a must read for almost all Chinese SEOer if they can read English. Once I thought I might do some translation of your articles however it is still undone. I hope this is time to break the silence.:)
Say "hi" to SEOmoz team and everyone here.：）
Absolutely! I wish I could speak and write Chinese to understand more of the issues faced in China. This post has generated a lot of unexpected but really great input.
Well now the question is, what content ARE they blocking if not that?
-Clif
"Tien An Men is an important part of China", indeed there's a long history of this square and deep cultural heritage that run back hundreds of years, so I wouldn't be surprised if something other than the 1989 massacre jump on top in SERP.
BTW Rand, do try the "world famous" Yangrou paomo (mutton soup served with wheat flour flat bread, hope you are not allergic to lamb)
Rand, Rebecca and Jane got it handled. Enjoy your vacation. When you get back you can tell us about it.
I keep wanting to go to Italy. Aahh, That'd be fun.
Rand,
I'm a chinese.From my computer,the search result of "tian an men square" on Google is same with yours.I just use common internet service in China, so I think it is not a forbidden word in the current communist leader's eyes.
what is being controlled is the content which SERP links goes to.
Even you can go around the filter once, but you might not be able get the sensitive content again. i am not sure the technical side, but surely, there is no perfect solution of that.
Frankly speaking, except some key words like you have metioned in your post, Google is still most helpful search tool. however, I rate google.com much higher than google.cn, same search in those two will return different result.
If you do need to search key word in Chinese, then Baidu will be the first choice anyway.
Welcome to China, I am in Beijing. if you need help drop me a line.
Xi'an is really cool! You should go have breakfast at one of the restaurants near the backpacker hotels. A lot of interesting people there and there's always a kiwi or an aussie who will need people to go with him in one of the buses to see all the sites. And rent a bike and drive around the wall. Aaahh, I'm so jealous. I was there 10 years ago and I'd love to go back one day.
Have you tried your search on google.cn as well? When you try it from the 'free world' the results are different from .com, but the #1 is still there on #5. Maybe you get different results there?
NB: I'm also getting a dropdown out of the search box when I type in something at google.cn. Has that always been there?
I am jealous of you, say hi to the wall for me. Enjoy China.
There's hardly any doubt that these results are specially filtered for foreigners. And just think, what they can see on the Internet is only one tiny part of the problems that Chinese have in their daily life--and let's not even get into the problems minorities face there. Sigh.
Randfish published a new article about censorsed search results in china. My recomments are as follows.
As a Chinese SEO,　I must tell you guys that we can get the same results when you search 'tian an men square' in Google ever on a Chinese computer and connecting from a Chinese hotel .
Of course, you can’t get information about Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989 if you type Chinese-language keywords in the first pages of Google SERPs
The reason of that is not just because of the censored search results of governments. Maybe you never know that in china history, Tiananmen means a lot. There are too many much more important events happened in the square. For example, May Fourth Movement of 1919, a cultural movement just likes The Renaissance in Italy.
Google is very great, he know the interests of European guys like you and what the Chinese people want to know.
I agree, there are alot of meaning being chinese words, and when you're searching with english, there is a high chance that you would get more results.
I also believe that there is a language barrier over there, as english is not a primary or even secondary language, they many be slightly more lenient if their results.
Also, try searching the same thing with Google.cn, you won't get the same results.
I'm glad I didn't respond to this comment last night and someone else did in a more respectful matter.
My response started with asking Stone-china if he was an SEO for a Chinese Government agency :(
Great research with screenshots Shor!
Interesting.
It would be curious to see what happens when you're on a Chinese computer with Chinese-language results (rather than English)...
Sorry for my ignorance Rand, but do you speak Chinese? I would be very interested to see the different search results. And I too am super jealous, enjoy the exploring.
Isn't there a way to get around the filters?
I was thinking it might be possible to use free proxy servers?
Yes, by using proxies it's fairly easy to get around the filtering. There are luckily many available, some better than others but it does slow down the experience. Tor is another option that can be used.
One of the tools I used in China when I do need to wiki some terms is
https://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html
I do not want to this address to be blocked due the word of mouth:)
it is joking.
Have fun with Si in China, and stop worrying about their search results ;)