How to launch an enterprise WordPress site in China

7 min read

WordPress remains the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), used by around 533 million websites worldwide. But how well does it work in China?

The reality is, many WordPress-based websites fail to perform as intended for users in Mainland China, often experiencing long load times, missing content, or complete functionality breakdowns.

Let’s jump into some of the common challenges of using WordPress in China, and how enterprise businesses can achieve fast, fully-functional WordPress sites for Chinese users without needing to rebuild their site or relocate their hosting environment.

Table of contents:

Yes, but not well by default.

You can access WordPress.org in China and technically launch a site but many WordPress websites are slow or broken when accessed from China.

Chinafy found that WordPress sites, on average, fail to load 44% of their resources in China due to blocked or slow-loading elements and incompatible infrastructure.

What this means for businesses with WordPress sites, is that there are extra steps to make a WordPress site load fast and fully in China. To understand why, we need to look at two broad categories of challenges.

Challenges of using WordPress in China

1. Code-based incompatibilities

WordPress is designed to provide high customizability, meaning a big ecosystem of plugins and resources to be used at your option. That said, common plugins like Yoast SEO, WP Rocket and Wordfence often include third-party resources like:

  • Google Fonts
  • YouTube embeds
  • Social media scripts
  • Analytics scripts

Many resources like these are either blocked or slow-performing in China. As a result, browsers stall while attempting to load these elements, creating bottlenecks that degrade performance.

Unfortunately, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of resources that have incompatibility issues (meaning they may take a long time to load or fail to load at all) in China and the way they work differs and evolves over time so there is no one-off list or means to edit these resources.

2. Infrastructure limitations

China’s internet infrastructure operates through a small number of state-affiliated ISPs with limited international interconnectivity and strict network controls. These factors create additional layers of congestion, packet loss, and unpredictable latency, making performance optimization for China uniquely complex compared to other regions.

WordPress relies on global CDNs like Cloudflare, which do not have Points of Presence (PoPs) in mainland China by default (note: some CDNs offer a China-specific package, however this has prerequisites such as an ICP license). 

Hosting your website outside of China creates additional latency for the same reason: there’s physical distance between your servers and the end users in China.

These limitations are not unique to WordPress. They also affect platforms like Shopify, Webflow, and Adobe Experience Manager, to name just a few.

Should you host your WordPress site onshore in China?

After reading about infrastructure limitations, you may jump to onshore hosting as the solution to your web performance problems. Hosting your website in China can help reduce latency because the server is geographically closer to the end users. However, most international websites load poorly or break in China not just because of server distance.

We like the phrase: “Proximity, without compatibility, is like building a superhighway to a roadblock.” What we mean by this, is that if you move your website to inside mainland China (which involves rebuilding and managing it from China as well as compliance prerequisites), then you may still run into issues due to code-based incompatibilities. 

Regardless of where your site is hosted, certain resources may load extremely slowly or fail completely, impacting web performance in China. 

How to make an enterprise WordPress site work in China

1. Test Your Site’s Performance

Start by understanding how your site performs from China using tools like Chinafy’s Global Speed Test to see metrics like:

  • Load time comparisons (China vs. global)
  • Time-to-first-byte (TTFB)
  • Page size
  • Third-party resource insights

2. Audit third-party plugins

If your site is only targeting users in Mainland China, you may want to consider using China-friendly alternatives to popular western services and plugins. 

For example:

  • Replacing Google Maps with Baidu Maps
  • Hosting videos on Youku or Bilibili instead of YouTube or Vimeo

3. Optimize with Chinafy

The simplest and most efficient way to optimize your WordPress site for China is by using Chinafy.

Chinafy works by identifying and replacing resources that don’t work in China, optimizing your site’s performance without requiring a complete rebuild or hosting change.

Here’s how Chinafy works:

  1. Generates a version of your WordPress website for China visitors without affecting your current site (no rehosting, no rebuilding).
  2. Identifies and remediates blocked or slow resources, such as replacing Google Maps with Baidu Maps where needed.
  3. Adds a China-friendly CDN without changing your current hosting set-up.
  4. If you’re hosting offshore, Chinafy routes China-IP-based traffic to the China-optimized version of your site without impacting global traffic which will still see your existing site. If you’re already hosting onshore, all your traffic will see the optimized version for China visitors.
  5. Chinafy then keeps your China-optimized site in sync with your global one, so that any changes you make to content in WordPress are reflected accordingly.

This means:

  • No onshore hosting or rebuild required*
  • Loading speed and user experience improvements
  • You can retain a single WordPress codebase

*Disclaimer: Business and legal requirements vary by organization and jurisdiction. Consult with legal and compliance professionals to ensure adherence to applicable regulations before implementing any solutions.


Reach out to DeveloPress and we’ll help you get your WordPress site visible and performing in China.

Got questions after reading the blog?

We’ll be happy to help you turn that knowledge into real results.