Google leaves China… sort of.

Written by . Posted on March 23, 2010. Filed under SEO. Tagged , , , , . Bookmark the Permalink. Post a Comment. Leave a Trackback URL.

After a long drawn out war of words with the Chinese government, Google has finally closed down Google.cn.

4 years ago, despite a large protest from free speech campaigners, Google started a self-censored search engine in China. This meant that when Chinese users searched for “tiananmen square” or “free tibet” they got nothing from Google.

Google leaves China

Back in January, Google claimed it had been the victim of a hacking attempt to gain access to the g-mail accounts of Chinese dissidents and it pointed a very angry finger in the direction of the Chinese government and threatened to leave China. Google has never been as huge in China as it is in the west, but Google’s threat to leave if it was forced to contine self censorship was still a bit of a shock for a company that has to provide results to shareholders, not moral guardians.

This is all in an environment where Microsoft are happy to pick up any ethically questionable slack that Google wont take up, see Chinese android phones where when Google left, Bing was in like a shot.

However today Google officially closed down Google.cn. They did it without pulling out of China completely by moving to Hong Kong. Thanks to the ’1 country, 2 systems’ set up, Google can run a simplified Chinese search engine without self censorship. This leaves the ball in China’s hands, they can either block Google out right for mainland Chinese users, or attempt to block individual searches – either way though, it will be obvious to Chinese netizens what is going on, rather that the subtlety involved in self censorship.

If you go to “Google.cn” today, you will be redirected to “Google.co.hk” with a message that says “Welcome to Google search in China’s new home” – according to Google Translate anyway ;-) One final point however – the redirect on Google.cn is a 302, a temporary redirect that even Google themselves recommend that you only use when you’re switching back to the original at some point. With Google leaving the door open for a possible return, this story probably has a while to run yet!

Google.Cn 302 Redirect

Google.Cn 302 Redirect

The cynic could say that Google are just getting some good PR while technically pulling back the level of service in a market they were struggling in, however I believe there’s more to this – Google has always considered it’s mission to be to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” – there’s nothing that stands in their way more when it comes to”universally accessible” information than state censorship.

So what happens next? China has already blocked Google.com.hk for chinese users and Google’s policy of giving Chinese users ‘something rather than nothing’ seems to have stopped with a bang.  So Google certainly haven’t won the battle here – indeed this is nothing more than a retreat, however only time will tell if they can win the war.

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  • http://digitalcortex.net/ Tom Saunter

    Ben, nice post. But what is the significance of a 302 redirect?

  • http://digitalcortex.net Tom Saunter

    Ben, nice post. But what is the significance of a 302 redirect?

  • Ben Bale

    There are two main types of redirect, a 301 and a 302. If you wanted to treat redirects like moving house, then it works like this…

    A 301 is permanent and essentially says “we’ve moved house, please send all our post on to our new address and update the electoral roll”.
    302, suggests “We’ve gone travelling for a bit, forward on my post on, but I will be back, so don’t change the long term records!”

    In this case, it suggests that Google see the redirect from Google.cn to Google.com.hk as a temporary act and could still have plans for Google.cn as a seperate entity. Of course, they didn’t know what the reaction of the Chinese government would be, so it might just be an acknowledgement of the fluidity of the current situation.

  • Ben Bale

    There are two main types of redirect, a 301 and a 302. If you wanted to treat redirects like moving house, then it works like this…

    A 301 is permanent and essentially says “we’ve moved house, please send all our post on to our new address and update the electoral roll”.
    302, suggests “We’ve gone travelling for a bit, forward on my post on, but I will be back, so don’t change the long term records!”

    In this case, it suggests that Google see the redirect from Google.cn to Google.com.hk as a temporary act and could still have plans for Google.cn as a seperate entity. Of course, they didn’t know what the reaction of the Chinese government would be, so it might just be an acknowledgement of the fluidity of the current situation.

  • Nicola

    This is one to watch, and potentially a lot more incendiary than it might seem. The Chinese government has now made the move to restrict usage of the Google Hong Kong site to mainland Chinese users. It’s turning into a game of one-upmanship, played at home in China, and one which I suspect Google won’t win.

    Something which doesn’t seem to have been considered so far is the ‘when in Rome’ question. Should Google zealously stand up for the universal access and lack of censorship it believes in when it sits within the culture and space of a country such as China? Is this an example of a Western ideal being forced on an eastern culture without consideration for China’s own mores? We are taught that when we enter another country we should respect and live by the host country’s rules, and this example could be seen as flagrant disrespect by Google.

    It appears the Chinese government is being reasonable so far in its acknowledgement that this is a move made by a commercial organisation and doesn’t reflect the US’s political intentions, but if Google continues to the point where the Chinese government feels it is losing face versus its people, or the US government is forced to intervene, it could result in a far more fundamental crossing of swords, with far wider diplomatic implications. Losing face is not something taken lightly in China, and Google could be seen to be pushing its luck.

  • Nicola

    This is one to watch, and potentially a lot more incendiary than it might seem. The Chinese government has now made the move to restrict usage of the Google Hong Kong site to mainland Chinese users. It’s turning into a game of one-upmanship, played at home in China, and one which I suspect Google won’t win.

    Something which doesn’t seem to have been considered so far is the ‘when in Rome’ question. Should Google zealously stand up for the universal access and lack of censorship it believes in when it sits within the culture and space of a country such as China? Is this an example of a Western ideal being forced on an eastern culture without consideration for China’s own mores? We are taught that when we enter another country we should respect and live by the host country’s rules, and this example could be seen as flagrant disrespect by Google.

    It appears the Chinese government is being reasonable so far in its acknowledgement that this is a move made by a commercial organisation and doesn’t reflect the US’s political intentions, but if Google continues to the point where the Chinese government feels it is losing face versus its people, or the US government is forced to intervene, it could result in a far more fundamental crossing of swords, with far wider diplomatic implications. Losing face is not something taken lightly in China, and Google could be seen to be pushing its luck.

  • Avesy

    Like the point about Google’s actions potentially being mis-interpreted as a political one. However the chilling way in which Eric Schmidt et al suggest they should be free of government intervention to do ‘no evil’ suggests we should be more afraid of Google than China. After all, they hold the keys to much of our digital existence, yet seem unwilling to take responsibility for this great power.

  • Avesy

    Like the point about Google’s actions potentially being mis-interpreted as a political one. However the chilling way in which Eric Schmidt et al suggest they should be free of government intervention to do ‘no evil’ suggests we should be more afraid of Google than China. After all, they hold the keys to much of our digital existence, yet seem unwilling to take responsibility for this great power.

  • Sean

    Yes Google only has a temporary redirect to HK but this is a compromise from Google not a mutally agreed solution with the goverment and they (the CN govt) are blocking taboo search terms on the HK domain already.

    To be clear, Google are definitely not pulling out of China. We shouldn’t forget that their search engine, particularly in China, is only a small part of what they do. Doubleclick, R&D, sales and perhaps more importantly their content network operations are all still there and it’s “business as usual”. All publisher and agency contracts in these areas are being honoured, for now anyway.

    So it’s most likely that this signals a strategic shift from Google rather than walking away. We shouldn’t rule out a PR play (although playing these games with CN govt. could lead to a permanent block), acquisitions, or a focus on other products like the content network or exchanges.

    Sean Seamer (MediaCom Head of Digital, APAC)

  • Sean

    Yes Google only has a temporary redirect to HK but this is a compromise from Google not a mutally agreed solution with the goverment and they (the CN govt) are blocking taboo search terms on the HK domain already.

    To be clear, Google are definitely not pulling out of China. We shouldn’t forget that their search engine, particularly in China, is only a small part of what they do. Doubleclick, R&D, sales and perhaps more importantly their content network operations are all still there and it’s “business as usual”. All publisher and agency contracts in these areas are being honoured, for now anyway.

    So it’s most likely that this signals a strategic shift from Google rather than walking away. We shouldn’t rule out a PR play (although playing these games with CN govt. could lead to a permanent block), acquisitions, or a focus on other products like the content network or exchanges.

    Sean Seamer (MediaCom Head of Digital, APAC)

  • http://RonnyRaichura.com/ Ronny Raichura

    From my perspective, this is a clear publicty stunt on Google’s part. The inflated brand coverage in it’s core markets far outweights the loss of search volume from a market where they are not dominant (at least from a purely search viewpoint).

    I can imagine the Google PR machine fuming that the news on everyone’s lips is either Bing!, the Yahoo/Microsoft merger or the Apple iPad which makes the timing of this news a little too convenient for me.

  • http://RonnyRaichura.com Ronny Raichura

    From my perspective, this is a clear publicty stunt on Google’s part. The inflated brand coverage in it’s core markets far outweights the loss of search volume from a market where they are not dominant (at least from a purely search viewpoint).

    I can imagine the Google PR machine fuming that the news on everyone’s lips is either Bing!, the Yahoo/Microsoft merger or the Apple iPad which makes the timing of this news a little too convenient for me.

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