Tip for Chinese end user research — A quick
Chinese firm’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 notable Chinese firm.
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 by now 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 firm | Not Found |
| SGCC.com.cn | Electric utility firm | Not resolve |
| CMBC.com.cn | Bank | Not resolve |
By not counting 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 as stated by 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.
