Do YouTube embeds and Google Fonts work on your site in China?

A page can look finished from your office and arrive half empty in Shanghai. Fonts, videos and widgets come from other companies’ servers, and each one has its own fate in China.

This guide covers those pieces, one by one. It’s part of our guide to putting your website in China.

For the full list of Google domains, see which Google services fail in China.

Which embeds fail in China?

YouTube, Vimeo and social embeds fail most clearly, while font addresses mostly connect. We read GreatFire’s test page for each address below on November 1, 2026. We list https, since that’s what embeds normally load.

Address	Used for	GreatFire result	Failed tests, 90 days	Last test
https://www.youtube.com	YouTube	Blocked 1	4 of 4	2026-10-20
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com	YouTube privacy mode	Blocked 2	4 of 4	2026-10-24
https://i.ytimg.com	YouTube thumbnails	Blocked 3	1 of 1	2026-10-25
https://player.vimeo.com	Vimeo player	Blocked 4	1 of 1	2026-10-14
https://fast.wistia.com	Wistia player	Not blocked 5	0 of 1	2026-10-20
https://fonts.googleapis.com	Google Fonts CSS	Not blocked 6	0 of 4	2026-10-15
https://fonts.gstatic.com	Google Fonts files	Not blocked 7	0 of 8	2026-10-20
https://use.typekit.net	Adobe Fonts	Intermittent 8	1 of 2	2026-10-30
https://platform.twitter.com	X posts	Blocked 9	1 of 1	2026-10-22
https://www.instagram.com	Instagram	Blocked 10	2 of 2	2026-10-03
https://connect.facebook.net	Facebook widgets	Blocked 11	No recent test	2026-05-27
https://calendly.com	Booking	Not blocked 12	0 of 1	2026-10-03
http://calendly.com	Booking	Intermittent 13	1 of 2	2026-10-22
https://www.bilibili.com	Bilibili site	Not blocked 16	0 of 6	2026-09-30

Two addresses that matter had no result at all. GreatFire hadn’t tested assets.calendly.com ¹⁴ or player.bilibili.com ¹⁵, over http or https.

Is Google Fonts blocked in China?

The sources disagree. Chinafy and AppInChina both say it’s blocked,¹⁸¹⁹ while GreatFire’s tests connected 4 of 4 times for the stylesheet and 8 of 8 for the files.⁶⁷

AppInChina’s page describes no test, and Chinafy’s post gives no measurement. GreatFire’s check only shows a connection. So neither side tells you how a real page behaves for a real visitor.

The decision doesn’t depend on who’s right, because the risk is lopsided.

• The stylesheet can hold up your page. Browsers don’t render content until the CSS has been processed.²⁰
• display=swap can’t rescue it. Google passes that setting through the stylesheet,²¹ so in our reading it does nothing if the stylesheet is what’s stuck.
• Mirrors add a dependency. Hongkiat, updated in 2024, swaps in fonts.useso.com with no test of it,²² an address GreatFire found unresolvable on July 14, 2026, and AppInChina offers a shared copy it runs itself.¹⁹ Each is one more outside service.

How to load fonts on Chinese pages

Use system fonts for Chinese text, and host anything else on your own domain. Those are two separate jobs, because the file sizes are so different.

Chinese text: use system fonts

Chinese fonts are huge, because they carry tens of thousands of characters.²⁴ These published figures show the scale.

What was measured	Size	Source
Noto Sans SC Regular, full font as WOFF2	About 6 MB or 8.9 MB: the page gives both	mlfont project 24
Chinese font files in general	Start in MBs, often over 10 MB	BlackGlory notes 25
Subset of 3,500 common characters, as WOFF, typeface not named	1.7 MB	BlackGlory notes 25
14 MB font cut to 19 characters	32 KB	Terence Eden, 2013 26

The 2020 study by Zhu et al. shows why that matters. It found speeds under 1 Mbps for more than 5 hours a day on over 70% of the pairs it measured.³³

At 1 Mbps, even a 6 MB font needs at least 48 seconds. Fonts already on the device add nothing to your page weight, and W3C’s Chinese layout group lists what’s available.²⁷

Platform	Simplified Chinese sans-serif	W3C status
Windows	Microsoft YaHei	Built-in
macOS	Heiti SC, PingFang SC	System, downloadable
iOS and iPadOS	PingFang SC, Heiti SC	Downloadable
Android	Noto Sans CJK SC	System fallback

W3C uses “downloadable” for a font the vendor supplies but that may be absent until installed. It warns against assuming CSS can see one.²⁷ So list several names and end on sans-serif.

A stack built from that table looks like this. Keep your Latin font first, so brand names and numbers keep their usual look.

font-family: "Your Latin Font", "PingFang SC", "Heiti SC",
  "Microsoft YaHei", "Noto Sans CJK SC", sans-serif;

Need a branded Chinese headline? Subset the font to the characters on that page, or use an image with real text in the alt attribute.

Our guide to website design for Chinese users covers the look.

Latin fonts: host them yourself

Moving a Latin font takes a few small steps. AppInChina’s self-hosting method and web.dev’s advice cover most of them.¹⁹²³

1. Check the license. Confirm that it allows self-hosting and subsetting.²³
2. Download only what you use. Keep the weights your design needs, in WOFF2.²³
3. Upload the files to your own domain. Then point your @font-face rules at them.
4. Set your headers. Font files need CORS when they load from another domain, so check that if you use a separate asset domain.¹⁹²³
5. Add font-display: swap. Text then shows in a fallback font while yours loads.¹⁸
6. Delete the old tags. Remove the Google link and any preconnect. Then check your theme and plugins, using our WordPress, Shopify and Webflow guide.

How to show video to visitors in China

Replace YouTube and Vimeo on your Chinese pages. The right replacement depends on how much the video matters. Two common fixes for YouTube don’t solve the problem.

• Privacy-enhanced mode: youtube-nocookie.com failed 4 of 4 tests.²
• A lightweight facade: lite-youtube-embed avoids loading the full player at first. But its example poster comes from i.ytimg.com, and its player uses youtube-nocookie.com.²⁹

A facade can reduce the wait. A click in China would still call a blocked domain. On the plain embed, Chinafy says broken embeds disrupt page loading.²⁸

Option	Best for	Main drawback
Chinese video platform	Chinese pages only	Account setup and Chinese interface
Your own video file	Short clips	Slow across the border
Written summary with images	Videos that aren’t essential	No video
A provider that sells China delivery	Large budgets, training, events	Contract and sales process

1. Does the page target China only?

   Yes: Chinese platform. No: file hosted by you, served only to Chinese pages.

2. Video not essential

   Written summary and images

Chinese video platforms

This is the common recommendation, but the practical details are old. The only specifics we found come from two posts from 2020, so check all of it before you budget.³⁰³¹

Platform	Ads on embeds (2020)	Cost (2020)	Sign-up (2020)
Bilibili	Not mentioned	Free	Business documents, not clearly defined by country
Tencent Video	Yes	Paid plan: RMB 3,000 for 50,000 views, one year	Case by case
Youku	Yes	Paid plan: RMB 5,000 a year, up to 80,000 views	Not very friendly to foreign companies

Both posts favor Bilibili for simple embeds. They use near-identical wording, so count them as one voice. They say you copy the iframe code from the share button, and that adding &danmaku=0 to its source URL turns off the scrolling viewer comments.³⁰³¹

Sources disagree on how these players behave abroad. Nanjing Marketing Group said in 2020 that Bilibili loads quickly inside and outside China.³⁰

Chinafy said in 2024 that these platforms perform poorly outside it.²⁸

Either way, the answer is the same. Use them on Chinese pages only, and keep your existing video elsewhere.

Don’t expect a tool to do the swap for you. Chinafy, which sells China delivery, says it won’t automatically replace a YouTube video with a Youku or Bilibili embed.³²

Someone has to upload your original file.

Hosting the video file yourself

This suits short clips. Chinafy lists it as an option, with more control but more maintenance.²⁸

A site hosted outside China hits the slow border described above. Chinafy says hosting inside it takes a local entity and an ICP license.²⁸ Check that with a local adviser, and see whether you need an ICP license.

At 1 Mbps, each 10 MB of video takes at least 80 seconds to arrive. Keep files short and compressed, and don’t let them download until someone asks.

<video controls preload="none" poster="/images/clip.jpg">
  <source src="/video/clip.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Here, preload="none" tells the browser not to fetch the video in advance, though MDN notes it’s only a hint.³⁴ The poster shows while the file is pending, and it can sit on your own domain.

One detail catches people out. Text placed inside the <video> tag doesn’t appear if all the sources fail.³⁴ So put your summary or transcript next to the player, not inside it.

Before choosing a host location, read about website hosting in China and Hong Kong or mainland hosting.

Vimeo, Wistia and other business players

These differ widely, so check each one. We found no independent test of video playback on any of them.

Provider	What’s said	Who says it
Vimeo	China has blocked access	Vimeo 35
Vimeo	Select Enterprise plans deliver on-demand video to employees in China through an in-country CDN	Vimeo 35
Wistia	Not officially blocked, and performance can be inconsistent	Chinafy, 2025 36
Wistia	24 of 46 tested wistia.com URLs were disrupted, and 22 accessible	GreatFire 45
Brightcove	Works in China and globally, with a monthly subscription	Chinafy, 2024 28
Brightcove	Lacks proper authorization for video hosting in China	Dacast, a competitor, 2023 37

The last two rows conflict, and both come from companies with something to sell. Ask any provider for written China terms before you sign.

Free check

Is your website visible on Baidu?

Enter your website. We check Baidu, access from China and how your site is set up, then email you the report.

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What to do with other embeds

Give each one a plain alternative that needs nothing from outside your domain. Here’s a sensible swap for the common cases.

Embed	What the evidence says	What to do on Chinese pages
X, Instagram, Facebook	Blocked at last test 91011	Use a screenshot or quote the post as text
Calendly	https passed, http intermittent, script host untested 121314	Show an email address beside the widget
Intercom	https passed 2 of 2, but GreatFire rates its domain Mixed 39	Keep contact details visible on the page
Hosted libraries	cdnjs passed 1 https test, while Chinafy says CDNs such as jsDelivr and Cloudflare may be throttled 1840	Serve the same files from your domain
Google Maps	See our guide	Follow Google Maps on your site
reCAPTCHA	See our guide	Follow forms and reCAPTCHA

Calendly’s inline embed loads its script from assets.calendly.com,³⁸ and that’s the host GreatFire hadn’t tested.¹⁴ So a pass on calendly.com doesn’t tell you the widget will appear.

How to see what happens when an embed fails

You can preview the failure from your own desk in five minutes. Chrome’s request blocking stops a domain inside your browser, so you can see what a visitor would be left with.⁴¹

1. Open your Chinese page in Chrome. Then open DevTools with F12.
2. Find the request. Reload, then pick a request from the domain in the Network tab, such as youtube.
3. Block it. Right-click the request and choose Block request. The rule appears in the Request conditions drawer.
4. Reload and look. Note any empty frames, invisible text or missing buttons.
5. Clean up. Remove the rule from the drawer when you’re done.

This shows the layout, not the wait. In our reading, a blocked request here fails at once, while a real one may hang. So this doesn’t replace a real test.

Next, check how the page behaves from the mainland. Our guide to testing whether your site is accessible in China lists the tools.

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: nothing that matters on a Chinese page should live on someone else’s server.

Replace YouTube and Vimeo, use system fonts for Chinese text, and host the rest yourself.

Then give every embed a plain fallback, because some of these addresses have barely been tested.

How Index in China can help

We localize sites into Simplified Chinese and get them indexed on Chinese search engines. Replacing fonts and embeds isn’t a listed part of that offer.

If you’re unsure where your site stands, book a 30-minute call.

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