Google in China moves to Hong Kong

Google.cn Web search is no longer available direcly under the top level domain .CN and is now redirecting its users to the Hong Kong version, which has uncensored results in spite of technically being located in China.

Welcome to Google search in China's new home

You can try it! Go to Google.cn, and you will be redirected to Google.com.hk. Then select Simplified Chinese and you will see the message (in Chinese) "Welcome to Google search in China's new home".

.CN redirects to.HK and not .COM

As you see, Google decided not to redirect its users to the English version, but instead redirect them to the web search in Traditional Chinese. The redirection has political implications; the Hong Kong S.A.R (Special Administrative Region) is still a part of China so it would be hard to block a website that is functioning from inside the country.

The Hong Kong version (and its uncensored results) has always been available from mainland China, but is now offering services in Simplified Chinese. So now the question is if the government will block the .HK version, the .COM version or take another course of action.

Google Music and Video are still .CN

Google has not made its services unavailable and there are some services that still work under the .CN top-level domain like Google Music, Google Video China and Google translate. On the other hand, the Web Search and the Images Search are redirecting (302) to the .HK domain.

Interesting redirection

For the more savvy readers an interesting note is that the redirection is not a “Permantly Moved” 301… is it merely a "Moved" 302, leaving us to wonder how long this situation will last and which direction the government and Google will take.