First I get banned from Digg (I did get unbanned, but all my stories are on auto-bury so I might as well be banned). Then Technorati freezes my ranking because of an evil ping attack. Now I find out that China, the country that was I born in, has blocked access to this blog!
According to GreatFireWallOfChina.org, China has blocked access to johnchow.com. However, the site also comes with the following disclaimer.
This version 1.0 may report sites as being ‘blocked’, while there are only technical reasons for their unavailability.
It’s greatfirewallofchina.org’s aim to collaboratively build a community that will be able to visualize Internet censorship in an increasingly accurate way.
The last time I was in China I had no problem accessing my blog so I think this site is full of it. When I entered Stephen Fung in the URL, it say, “This page does not exist or could not be tested due to technical reasons!” So, I’m blocked and Stephen doesn’t exist. 
Thanks to Juan Francisco Diez for sending me this but I’m pretty sure John Chow dot Com is available in China. But just in case, can someone in China confirm this for me?
Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...
Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.
One of the most common complaint (or excuse) I hear from potential new bloggers is they don’t know how to install WordPress. Terms like FTP and CPanel are like a foreign language and setting up a database might as well be setting up the space shuttle for a launch. Because of the technology barrier, many would-be bloggers never start their blogs...
{ 77 comments }
I guess China knows evil when the see it. I just tested my blog ( http://www.shawn-knight.net ) and my tech site ( http://www.ocia.net ) and both say “Your URL is available”. I guess they dont hate me… yet…
Strange, I tested this blog and it says available also…
I was in China, the city of ZhuHai(next to Macau) two weeks ago. I access the site without problem at the time.
I tested mine about a week ago and couldn’t open it. I tried again and got in….
You’re just not cool until you’re banned somewhere. You must be doing something right.
Well that just sucks…
No _huge_ loss though, with all of my sites next to none traffic comes from China, so I imagine it’s the same for you.
Good luck with things John.
ok I am stupid… I entered john-chow.com instead of johnchow.com
My bad!
Now you’re unblocked
–
GFW Customer Service
Probably not true. Why would they go out of their way to ban their one and only dot com mogul
No, John. You’re fine here. (Guangzhou, China. ADSL)
And that site reports that my URL is unblocked.. Surprising considering that it has one of the
forbidden 
word in it. 
And what word would that be?!?!
My site is blocked
why?
maybe they have site standards that your blog needs to pass
I just tried my domain which includes the word “devil” and it’s all okay, I mustn’t be evil enough.
Gives me a new goal though
I’ve heard this site is more of a joke than anything. Its pretty random what results you get, not based on actual China connectivity at all
Where did you heard that from?
Seems to me it is not a joke. Because I try it on wenxuecity.com which is the largest chinese site out of China and the result is that it is blocked. I have known for a long time that this site is blocked by China.
Also, the title of your link says GreatWallOfChina.org – but its actually GreatFIREWallOfChina.org
I don’t like you either.
looks like lot of site from china has been banned.Even cypherhakz had same problem.
I guess it’s not really necessary to bother about results from this, since China does block many external websites. The only ones that their citizens can view are mostly internal websites, since they can be largely ‘controlled’.
But Hey….You just went to China right?!!!!!!!!!!! They like u JC…they like u… lol
My remains blocked too.. But I wonder where the .com.cn web visitors on my site are coming from…
They’re getting you back for the baby panda incident.
Don’t forget the Scooter Incident!
The pandas had you blocked.
China try to protect their citizens to sensor unneeded informations.
So don’t worry be happy…
I hope this problem will be solved soon
For some reason I get like 5% of my traffic from China on one of my sites. Not sure exactly why either. The site really isn’t about anything other than internet personalities.
Apparently I don’t exist in China.
I tried http://johnchow.com and got the same result. Agree with the comment about baby panda.
Blog about how great China is and you’ll be back in no time.
i see him shakin from LA!
Life’s little way of telling you not to go into the red.
Maybe you gave the finger to the wrong guys at the ECS concentration camp
BTW I think that website is full of it too, but why bother making a scam with no adsense?
John:
your site available in China,I can confirm it
(I’m in China)
I think there is some problem in GreatFireWallOfChina.org, many results it returns wrong
Suck for you. my personal on is ok http://www.gregstratz.blogspot.com but my review site http://www.ourblogreview.com was blocked. oh well
Surprised not all blogs are banned in China since they don’t want their citizens to read anything with an opinion attached to it (unless it agrees with the state)
That’s right. The state steps in to control what is said as well, on the net world.
i checked yahoo and they said it was blocked… might be the fact that my connection is a bit slow though. it says it was unblocked for other attempts today though.
that’s some of my biggest concerns, as i plan to go to china. i want to continue to access my accounts, but i just can never be certain how long i will be able to, or if they would ever block me.
i suspect they don’t like seeing a wild Chinaman on the lose, John. :p
haha…If it is blocked…thats quite funny…
Heheh… Well like people have said, it does not look like it actually shows what is blocked correctly, but funny anyway.
Since my blog is also blocked, I assume they have many technical errors. Interesting site concept though.
I’m in China ..but I can access your blog now
Canadian Financial Rants is readable by anyone in China who wishes to read it! I once did a presentation which was translated “on the fly” by a young lady to a group of Japanese businessmen, and half way through my presentation I noticed she had given up, due to my speed and use of coloquialisms! Whoo Hoo!
Free John Chow for the Chinese!! –C8j
I found this resource a couple of weeks ago and checked my sites – looks like China hasn’t blocked my sites (yet).
But it’s an interesting concept and a good way to showcase censorship…
i wonder just how picky they are, i’ve never had any of my sites blocked
Now that’s funny.
I’m banned too?! I think that’s stupid. All of us who tried it god banned url
I think it has glitches. or just a fraud
ive read that this has been happening a lot, i dont know why
pretty crazy, my site (www.exoticexcess.com) was also blocked by Digg. When I asked why I was blocked I was told that my site has been reported as spam.
So in essence you could report just about any site as spam and they would get blocked. Kinda flaky if you ask me…
Very true, but Digg can’t employ someone to sit around and check all of the reported sites!
Why not? Judging by their ‘About’ page they’ve got like 30 employees, I doubt they’re all fulltime coding or on the phone…
Dear Dr. Evil,
I’m in China, and have been here reading your last blog regularly since Jan 2007. Just to let u know, cheers!
whoa . you’re in china and you can read this blog? . . .better be careful!
I doubt the website linked to in the post is accurate, I’ve seen various sites being said to be blocked, and others who hit the news because they were blocked don’t seem to be.
Don’t let those commies catch you! Chow is now an unspoken word.
Hmmm, I think your people are protesting you John…you must be evil
Mine worked!
However the flash has issues. 
Cool tool John. Thanks!
My worked aswell, but when I put in JohnChow.com, it took to long to load and aborted
.
I don’t believe that website. Said my IP was ‘Australia’, not likely, mate. It’s Taipei, Taiwan.
Also, I tried mine. It said I was ‘banned’, too.
Anyway, you can always make a “Banned in China, now you can read John Chow – THE uncensored version!” That must be good for a few hits.
I think that site doesn’t work at all! It’s reporting all the sites that i put has banned, wich i know that some of them are not banned at all
I am from china , i can vist your web.
as csudhoff said digg bans blogs if you’ve been reported.
for me it’s very unfair.
I think they should check it before banning it
Do not worry John, China did not like URL relative to Blog. I have tested my new address and my blog address is blocked but not my Web site …
I think that there is an automatic process. blog is a no autorized work, like john
Nico
Looks like all 3 of my sites are blocked. I’m not surprised by two of them but the third is a surprise….
It must be the blog posts about the OhMyBod (and now iBuzz)
.
Here’s something that you might find pretty strange. My freelance writing business (michaelkwan.com), whether you include the www or not, is blocked… BUT…. my blog (btr.michaelkwan.com) is available.
I think their sever has the glitch
John, on Monday it was reporting bloggingfusion.com as blocked, but today it shows it as available. I just tested your blog and it still showing as blocked. I’ll be blogging about this too.
I tried it again on my other domains ending up being said to be banned, I think it needs some twitches!! hehehehe
So what do you have to do to get banned in China anyway?
Many of my sites are “unavailable”..hmmm wonder how accurate the test was. Oh, well most of content are focused to the North American market anyway.
Das Brain
Your site is available to me here in china. I found out today, for the first time in 7 months, that I cant access my own now. I think there is a crack down going on because most blogs I can’t access from here that I have been able to all along. ?
it seems like all these companies are trying to bog you down, digg, then this
I am in China. I can access your site.