The Top Ten 2020 Business Websites about China as Read by Foreign Investors in China

February 4, 2020 Posted by China Briefing Reading Time: 4 minutes

Op/Ed by Chris Devonshire-Ellis

China’s best business blogs and websites identified by their Alexa rankings and keywords – Updated February 2020.

The number of China-focused, English language business blogs and websites has fallen off considerably over the past few years, mainly because not many had much staying power, let alone the time and financial investment required to maintain them and keep them current and relevant. Many authors have left China, their commitment to writing about it either fleeting or unsustainable. A few hardy survivors remain, however. But how relevant are they? Which are the best? And which are the pretenders?

We have run a series of articles each year for the past few years on who has the best material out there. You can see the results for each previous year as follows:

Determining China Blog and Website Ranking and Quality Criteria
In other years, we have used Amazon’s Alexa facility to determine the popularity of blogs and websites. However, in order to drill down even more, this year we have added an extra caveat – the use of keywords and the percentage of those contributing to a particular website. This has real quality value as a wide variety of good business keywords with low percentages means a website has quality content and lots of it. If that isn’t the case, it means that either the content isn’t very good, or systematic ranking manipulation has been taking place.

These are the results this year:

China Briefing www.china-briefing.com Alexa Ranking: 96,048 Top Three Keywords: Company Chop (2.79%), US China Trade War (2.21%), Made in China 2025 (1.44%) Over the last 20 years, we have worked hard to grow our website into a reliable and relevant resource for businesses in China. As the stats show, we’ve regained pole position after three years. It is the only independent China business website in the global top 100,000.
SupChina www.supchina.com Alexa Ranking: 144,372 Top Three Keywords: Love and Producer (3%), Zhou Qi (2.97%), Saturday Night Live (2.32%) Sup China is a popular platform and the focus of its content is cultural news rather than business developments. The website gets good rankings. However, it has declined 25,000 places in the past 6 months.
China Internet Watch www.chinainternetwatch.com Alexa Ranking: 192,787 Top Three Keywords: Tabao (23.37%), Jingdong (5.2%), Tmall (4.06%) A well focused website as the keywords illustrate. Down from first position in 2018, and a valuable resource for examining the China internet and its consumers. Has seen improvement in 2019 and now back in the top 200,000.
Marketing to China www.marketingtochina.com Alexa Ranking: 208,261 Top Three Keywords: Social Media Apps (1.69%), French Luxury Brands (1.68%), Gentlemen Marketing (1.65%) The website to view with an angle on selling to China. Has seen some decline since 2019, probably attributable to the US-China trade war.
Quality Inspection www.qualityinspection.org Alexa Ranking: 251,261 Top Three Keywords: AQL (7.38%), T/T (5.55%), AQL Table (3.35%) China’s best technical blog for QC engineers getting deserved high marks. Has seen improvement over 2019 as knowledge base also now extends to Asia.
China Check Up www.chinacheckup.com Alexa Ranking: 353,511 Top Three Keywords: Aliexpress (8.57%) China Company Check (2.91%), DHgate (2.22%) Good all-round due diligence resource, gained in popularity the past year.
China File www.chinafile.com Alexa Ranking: 534,817 Top Three Keywords: David Moser (2.6%) How Many People..(2.41%), Why Did George H. W…(1.46%) A news platform run similar to that of Quora, though business content is now less frequent. Has seen some decline, less content being posted.
China Business Review www.chinabusinessreview.com Alexa Ranking: 890,552 Top Three Keywords: US Exports to China (3.63%), What Does The US Expect From China (2.95%) Corporate Consulting (2.08%) Another long standing blog, with oft-useful advise. Perhaps a bit self promotional at times but nonetheless well written. Has declined since 2019 due to its pro-US stance and the US-China trade war.
Sinocism www.sinocism.com Alexa Ranking: 733,809 Top Three Keywords: Bill Bishop, (52.48%) Sinocism (12.22%), Bill Bishop China (7.78%) This is now behind a paywall and losing market. However, is still a quality website.
China Law Blog www.chinalawblog.com Alexa Ranking: 3,030,186 Top Three Keywords: China Self Driving Cars (30.99%), China Movie Stars Pay (15.04%), Uncle Martian (1%) The keywords seriously don’t match the content, suggesting something is very amiss with the folk over at China Law Blog. It has dropped 2.5 million places in the past 6 months, due to increasingly anti-China business views, and inaccurate, sensationalist content. Is no longer considered credible in expatriate China business circles, and has insulted China based expatriates. In dire need of a rethink and an editor, or its decline will be terminal.

Honorary Mention:

Silk Road Briefing
www.silkroadbriefing.com
Alexa Ranking: 816,771
Top Three Keywords: Sri Lanka Belt and Road (5.33%), New Development Bank (4.77%), Caspian Pacific Tax (3.04%)
The only major site dealing with the Belt and Road Initiative. Broke into the top one million sites globally in 2019 and has risen another 100,000 places in the past 6 months.

But congratulations to all those who made it! Will more of the websites break into the global 100,000 next year? We’ll wait and see…

(The article was originally published on June 26, 2019 and has been updated on February 4, 2020.)

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