BT Web hosting - CHINA

[timandoy]

Hi,

My first post, so apologies if it sounds like a rant.

I'm currently in China on business in my newly self-employed guise.

Having set up a website to promote my services, using BT, please accept my considerable disappointment to discover that the site is unavailable (probably blocked) in China.

It's not just my site ... I've checked my wife's (exactly the same service provider, i.e. BT) and it is also unavailable.

In as much as I appreciate that this is not necessarily BT's "fault", had I known this to be the case in advance, I would have most definitely considered an alternative provider.

Very disappointed & frustrated!

Anyone else in the same boat?

Thanks for listening.

Tim

[dave]

This would be caused by the Golden Shield Project, aka the Great Firewall of China and ALL BT web hosting customers will be in the same boat as yourself.

It will be the case that another BT customer has content that the Chinese authorities find questionable, and as a result they have blocked access to the IP address of BT's server.

I would refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_shield_project, in particular the passage:

"The access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target Web site is hosted in a shared hosting server, all Web sites on the same server will be blocked."

Unfortunately, you are likely to run into this issue with any shared hosting provider and the only way to guarantee not being blocked would be to use a host that can provide a dedicated server or dedicated ip address (BT doesn't provide either of these). Expect to pay a lot more money for this kind of service.

[timandoy · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Dave.

That's informative, and no doubt accurate.

It just seems a little bit ironic that I can view all of BT's own content, and - as you explained - if my site is being blocked as a result of other "inappropriate" content on the server, I would expect BT to act accordingly and lobby on my behalf.

China has been for some years a key market for me, and going forward I'll probably be pitching for quite a lot of business here of my own.

For that reason alone, it look like I'm going to have to move away from BT.

Thanks for your prompt and helpful reply.

Tim

[dave]

BT will not host their own websites on the same shared servers that they sell to the customers so this is why you are able to see this content ok.

Unfortunately I doubt BT will be able to do anything about it. They will only remove dodgy content if it is illegal here, and there is absolutely no chance that BT will have any clout with the Chinese authorites to get their IP address unblocked. Even the mighty Google were subjected to censorship before they eventually pulled out of China.

As I said before, if looking for a new host, make sure you get a dedicated IP address for your site or you WILL run into this issue again.