Which Google services fail in China, and what should you use instead?

Most guides give you a flat list of what Google blocks. The real picture is messier, and that’s useful to know. Some services fail outright, and others connect in tests but still cause trouble.

For your site, the question isn’t what’s banned. It’s what your pages wait for. This guide is part of our work on putting your website in China.

We ran no test from China for this page. Everything below comes from public tests and documents, and we say where they stop.

Is Google banned in China?

In practice, yes on the mainland, though the picture varies by address. GreatFire rates 2,838 of the 2,923 google.com URLs it has tested as blocked.¹ We found no official list of blocked services, so tests are the best evidence available.

Most people asking mean one of two things, and each has its own answer.

Your question	Short answer	Go to
Can people in China use Google Search?	No, on the mainland	Does Google work in China?
Will my website break there?	Only if it depends on a blocked address	The rest of this page

The services your team uses day to day fail as well, and that matters when you work with Chinese partners.

Service	Address (https)	GreatFire result, last 90 days	Last test
Gmail	mail.google.com	Blocked, 6 of 6 failed 19	Oct 21, 2026
Drive	drive.google.com	Blocked, 1 of 1 failed 20	Aug 15, 2026
Docs and Forms	docs.google.com	Blocked, 2 of 2 failed 21	Sep 1, 2026
Play Store	play.google.com	Blocked, 13 of 13 failed 22	Nov 1, 2026
Translate	translate.google.com	Intermittent, 13 of 13 disrupted 23	Nov 1, 2026

Google also closed Translate in mainland China itself in October 2022, citing low usage.⁴¹ So don’t send a Chinese partner a Drive link or a Google Form and assume it opened.

Which Google services does your website depend on?

Search, YouTube and the default reCAPTCHA script fail. Maps and Analytics are blocked or disrupted depending on the address. Fonts and Tag Manager connect in these tests.

We read the GreatFire page for each address on November 1, 2026. We list https, since that’s what websites normally load, and GreatFire tests http and https separately.²⁵

Address (https)	Used for	GreatFire result	Failed or disrupted, last 90 days	Last test
www.google.com	Search, default host for embeds	Blocked 2	16 of 17	Oct 30, 2026
www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js	reCAPTCHA script	Blocked 3	4 of 4	Oct 18, 2026
www.recaptcha.net/recaptcha/api.js	reCAPTCHA alternative host	Not blocked 4	0 of 2	Oct 18, 2026
www.youtube.com	Video embeds	Blocked 5	4 of 4	Oct 20, 2026
maps.google.com	Maps site	Blocked 6	3 of 3	Oct 18, 2026
maps.googleapis.com	Maps API	Disrupted 7	3 of 3	Oct 30, 2026
ajax.googleapis.com	Hosted libraries	Blocked 9	1 of 1	Aug 22, 2026
www.google-analytics.com	Analytics	Blocked 11	No recent test	Jul 24, 2026
www.google-analytics.com/g/collect	GA4 data calls	Intermittent 12	1 of 1	Oct 15, 2026
region1.google-analytics.com	GA4 data calls	Blocked 13	1 of 1	Oct 26, 2026
accounts.google.com	Sign in with Google	Intermittent 18	7 of 7	Oct 31, 2026
www.googletagmanager.com	Tag Manager	Not blocked 14	0 of 5	Oct 23, 2026
fonts.googleapis.com	Font stylesheets	Not blocked 16	0 of 4	Oct 15, 2026
fonts.gstatic.com	Font files	Not blocked 17	0 of 8	Oct 20, 2026

Two rows have fresher http results. http://ajax.googleapis.com failed 2 of 2 tests to October 31,⁸ and http://www.google-analytics.com failed 3 of 3 to October 25.¹⁰

The conflict over Google Fonts

Chinafy calls Google Fonts fully blocked, and AppInChina says the API is blocked.³⁰²⁸ GreatFire’s tests say the opposite.¹⁶¹⁷

Neither vendor shows a test, and both sell a way around the problem. GreatFire shows a connection, not a working font on a real page. So nobody here settles how a visitor’s page behaves. Our fonts guide covers what to do either way.

Why a blocked service can stall your whole page

The danger is waiting, not the missing feature. How much you wait depends on how the page loads the resource.

How it loads	What the browser does	Risk if the address hangs
Stylesheet in the page head, such as Google Fonts	Won’t render until the CSS is processed 37	Blank page
Plain script tag, with no async or defer	Stops parsing the page 38	Content below it waits
Script with defer	Holds back DOMContentLoaded until it loads 38	Page shows, later scripts wait
Script with async	Keeps parsing while it loads 38	Lowest, though load events can still be held up 39

AppInChina tested a lightweight blog from a mainland network, with no VPN. Two GA4 calls timed out after 3 minutes 9 seconds. DevTools showed DOMContentLoaded at 1 minute 3 seconds and Finish at 5 minutes 3 seconds.²⁷

That’s one test on one page from a vendor, and its date isn’t given. Don’t treat it as a typical figure.

Chinafy describes the same split for maps. A map loaded asynchronously leaves a blank or grey box, while a synchronous one can stall the page for 30 seconds or more.²⁹ And a CDN won’t fix it, says Chinafy, since it doesn’t proxy third-party domains.²⁹

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.

Your websiteCheck my site

What to replace, service by service

Replace what your pages depend on, in order of damage. Maps and forms usually come first, because a visitor needs them to reach you.

Google service	What fails	Use instead
Fonts	Blank text, broken layout 30	System fonts for Chinese, your own domain for the rest
Hosted libraries	Scripts that never load	The same files on your own domain
Maps	Blank map or stalled page 29	Written address and links to Amap and Baidu Maps
reCAPTCHA	Forms that can’t submit 31	Server-side checks, or a Chinese CAPTCHA such as GeeTest
YouTube	Video that can’t load	Written summary, your own file, or a Chinese video platform
Analytics	Missing data	Self-hosted Matomo, or a local tool such as Baidu Tongji
Sign in with Google	Login that may not appear	Email sign-in beside it

Google Fonts

Host the files yourself. It removes the question, whatever a given test says. Chinafy also suggests font-display: swap, so text appears in a fallback font while yours loads, along with WOFF2 and subsetting.³⁰

Chinese fonts are larger than Latin ones because they carry more glyphs.³⁰ Our guide to fonts, YouTube and embeds in China gives published sizes and a system font stack for Chinese text.

Hosted libraries

Serve jQuery and similar files from your own domain. It’s the plainest fix on this page, since ajax.googleapis.com is blocked on both http and https.⁸⁹

The tradeoff is upkeep. Self-hosted scripts don’t update themselves, so you have to apply fixes yourself.³⁹

Google Maps

Don’t embed it on your Chinese pages. The simplest option for a company outside China is the address written out, plus links to Amap and Baidu Maps.

If you make a map image, avoid a Google screenshot, and read our Google Maps guide first. It covers map rules, deep links and API terms.

A full Chinese map API takes more. Chinafy says a Baidu developer account needs a Chinese phone number and business license.²⁹

Check coordinates if you do use one. Chinafy says China uses GCJ-02 and Baidu adds BD-09 on top, so GPS coordinates can land 100 to 700 meters away.²⁹

reCAPTCHA and contact forms

This one costs you leads, so test it first. The default script failed all 4 recent tests.³ Chinafy says the widget may not render, leaving forms unable to submit.³¹

Third-party form tools can carry the same dependency.³¹

Google’s own FAQ says to use www.recaptcha.net when www.google.com isn’t accessible, without mentioning China.³² GreatFire shows that script connecting,⁴ but Chinafy reports intermittent issues and calls it unstable.³¹

Chinafy calls GeeTest widely adopted in China, and hCaptcha’s performance there mixed.³¹ Our guide to forms and reCAPTCHA compares the options, and explains why Cloudflare Turnstile isn’t one of them.

YouTube and other embeds

YouTube is blocked, and GreatFire rates 678 of 679 tested youtube.com URLs that way.⁵ Write the key content into the page, then host a compressed video yourself or publish it on a Chinese platform for your Chinese pages.

The embeds guide compares these options and covers Vimeo and social widgets.

Google Analytics and Tag Manager

Don’t trust the numbers for China. The data calls are blocked or intermittent depending on the address,¹¹¹²¹³ and the loader itself connected in its one recent test.¹⁵

Claim	Source	Evidence shown
Data from Chinese users never reaches Google	AppInChina, a vendor 27	One page test
At least 50% of visitors are missed	Matomo, a competing tool 33	None
Some calls pass, others fail	GreatFire 101213	Address tests, not delivered data

Nobody we read measures the real loss, so treat any percentage as a rough claim.

Matomo says a copy hosted outside China can still track Chinese visitors.³³ AppInChina names Baidu Tongji, Ptengine and Umeng as domestic options.²⁷ We couldn’t confirm that Tongji works for a site hosted abroad, so test it first.

Where that data lands is a separate question. Read does China’s privacy law apply to your website and ask a local adviser.

Sign in with Google

Keep another way in. The button’s library loads from accounts.google.com,⁴⁰ and GreatFire saw interference in all 7 recent tests of that address.¹⁸ An email login beside it needs nothing from Google.

How to find what your site loads

You can do this in 10 minutes, even without a developer.

1. Open your page in Chrome. Use a private window, so extensions stay out of it.
2. Open DevTools. Press F12, then choose the Network tab.
3. Reload and filter. Type google, gstatic, recaptcha, youtube, ytimg and doubleclick in turn.
4. Use the page. Scroll down and open your form, because some calls only fire then.
5. List what you find. Note each domain and what it does on the page.
6. Check your plugins. Themes, form builders and chat widgets can add these calls too.

1. fonts.googleapis.comSelf-host
2. maps.googleapis.comReplace
3. google.com/recaptchaReplace, test first
4. googletagmanager.comLoad without blocking the page

Then check how the page behaves from China. Our guide to testing whether your site is accessible in China explains how to do that without a VPN skewing the result.

Speed is the next step once these calls are gone. See how to speed up your website in China.

The bottom line

Don’t rely on any Google domain for something your page needs in order to work in China. Blocked services are the obvious problem, but the ones that pass a test can still be unreliable.

Host your fonts and libraries yourself, replace maps and captchas, then test your own pages.

How Index in China can help

We localize sites into Simplified Chinese and get them indexed on Chinese search engines. Replacing Google services isn’t a listed part of that offer, so bring your list when we talk.

We don’t promise rankings or traffic. Book a 30-minute call.

Book a 30-minute call

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