How can I test my Chinafy website in China

We believe in a results-driven approach and encourage you to test alongside us so we can deliver the best version of your site possible.

Below are some best practices on how to test your site from China:

1. (Outside of China) Test with online tools

Not physically in China? Use Visual Speed Test by Chinafy or Webpage test by Catchpoint to test how fast your Chinafy site loads in China. These allow you to test in a virtual environment from several locations in China including Beijing and Shanghai.

Some of the metrics we look at include: 

• TTFB: Time to first byte: This referes to the time between the browser requesting a page and when it receives the first byte of information from the server. This time is inclusive of the time it takes to establish a connection with a TCP & SSL handshake (when request is made via https) and the initial DNS lookup.
• First Contentful Paint (FCP): When the browser first renders the initial bit of content from the DOM, indicative of when the user first receives feedback that "something is loading".
• Time to Interact: The time it takes before visitors can begin to scroll on a page, click on links, and interact with the website in general.
• Number of requests: It's important to compare the total number of total requests delivered from the 'original' website in China vs. the 'post-Chinafy' website in China. In most cases, this explains why the 'total page time' loaded may be greater than the original as the post-Chinafy site is delivering anywhere from 50-90% more resources. 
• DOMContentLoaded: The DOMContentLoaded event fires when only when the initial HTML document has been completely loaded and parsed. This is often used to define when the page has completed loading fully. You'll notice that certain files will be deemed 'trailing resources', meaning that they tend to load near the end of the page loading experience. Examples of these trailing resources may include analytics (e.g. Google Aanalytics) which don't directly impact the user's experience of the site but are still nonetheless part of the site's content. In many cases, when the rest of the site is slow to load or has incompatible resources, these trailing resources and their functionality is negatively impacted because the site is unable to render them in a reasonable time.

Some guiding questions to review the above metrics:

• Is the Chinafy preview site loading more resources or less? You can review this directly in detail in the Resource waterfall.
• Is the Chinafy preview site interactive as intended? 
• How is my site functioning? Are there parts of my site that were completely non-functional in China, and now functional? Pay particular attention to videos and images. 
• How does my original site compare visually with Chinafy preview site?
• How does my original site compare in terms of consistency with Chinafy preview site? (A site that works 'sometimes', still doesn't work!)

2. (In-China) Test with local devices in China

If you're based in China/have a China team, browse around the site as you normally would.

If you encounter any issues, make a note of your testing environment for our support team [e-mail].  More specifically, it'd be helpful to -

• Describe your device type, browser type, and network conditions
• Supplement with screenshots or recordings
• Test the same page outside of China to see if this applies on a global level

Not happy with your speed? Here're some possible reasons why and how you can fix it.

Got questions? Reach out to us at [e-mail].