With industry and especially online business becoming increasingly global, commonalities are surfacing between continents, but we are also finding some differences. Exciting new markets bring complex new problems, and what worked in one area of the world may not work the same way in another.
Here at Blue Triangle we monitor overall site health. One issue we have encountered has nothing to do with performance, but it affects your ability to compete in the global market.
Compliance with internet censorship laws in various places can make or break your ability to do business in a particular region. Censorship laws can affect everything from news, to media, to marketing, and can be especially difficult to monitor on the web.
The most famous example of online censorship law is perhaps the “Great Firewall of China.” The US State Department has a brief explanation of digital censorship in the People’s Republic of China, while Wikipedia has a full list of companies that have been blocked by not complying. China is an enormous market with an active online population, and for companies that want to do business there, including banned words can spell disaster.
Accidentally including text or images on a site that would be interpreted differently in a different social context can amount to a missed opportunity almost anywhere, though. Think of the potential for adult ads to appear on unrelated, legitimate websites. Knowing what appears on your site is useful in multiple contexts.
Companies that want to compete overseas need to be hyper aware of what is on their site. And as circumstances change day-to-day, they need to be very aware of what should not be there as well. Keeping track of banned terms is one thing, but finding out whether they are on your site during ongoing updates is another.
This is a delicate balance – we all know SEO improves with the more site enhancements and updates (as well as speed and performance but that’s for another blog (insert link)). But it can be hard to follow shifting expectations while also updating your site to remain delightful for your users.
At Blue Triangle, we have had great success running full site crawls for our customers to make sure that nothing prevents their sites being blocked in other markets. This is a three-step process:
We’re here to show you how and where to fix it. And we create a pretty clear summary:
Even though the world is becoming more interconnected, it is not getting less complicated. Keeping up with changes, or getting ahead of them, requires being able to make sure your requirements are being met with each change.
Reviewing changes to make sure they hit the mark might include meeting performance benchmarks or complying with internet censorship laws. Whatever the case, we are happy to help you automate these processes.
So whatever market, size, shape, or speed you want to fit into, we will help you stay ahead of any issues that might happen – no matter where they are. Interested? We’d love to talk.