Chinese company’s website doesn’t resolve? Try again with www.
Here’s a quick tip for you when researching end users in China. Be sure to prefix a .cn or .com.cn domain with “www”. Otherwise, you may miss out an important Chinese company.
This is a common problem I have come across time and time again. Say I have a domain called MyDomain.com and I want to see if MyDomain.cn is already developed. When you enter the domain into your browser, there is a difference between specifying “mydomain.cn” and “www.mydomain.cn”.
The difference can be illustrated using the following examples.
Domain | With www | Without www |
---|---|---|
Eduyun.cn | Education platform | Not resolve |
SZSE.cn | Stock exchange | Not resolve |
NMC.cn | National Meteorological Center | 403 Forbidden |
ZZGC.com.cn | Engineering company | Not Found |
SGCC.com.cn | Electric utility company | Not resolve |
CMBC.com.cn | Bank | Not resolve |
By not including the “www” prefix, you may have missed out on some big potential buyers for your domain. For example, SZSE.cn is the corporate site of ShenZhen Stock Exchange, which is the 8th largest stock exchange in the world according to Wikipedia. Another example is SGCC.com.cn of State Grid Corporation of China which ranks No. 5 in 2019 Fortune Global 500.
Therefore, be sure to prefix .cn and .com.cn domains with “www” when doing your end user research.
Michel Payette says
Thanks for the info.
Kassey Lee says
You are welcome, Michel. Glad that it’s useful to you.
AbdulBasit Makrani says
Thanks for sharing.
This tip I came to knew more than a decade back when I used to live in UAE as many sites don’t resolve without www on their ccTLD .ae
Still it’s the case with some others as well so I need to check with “www” even if it’s .com
Kassey Lee says
That suggests to me that corporate understanding of domains is not high and the domain market is not mature — meaning there are still tremendous opportunities for the smart investors.