Can one Traditional Chinese website serve both Hong Kong and Taiwan?

Hong Kong and Taiwan both write in Traditional Chinese, so it’s tempting to treat them as one market. For reading, that often works. For search, it can fail, because people type different words.

This page covers that split. It’s part of our guide to translating and localizing a website for China. If you haven’t picked a script yet, start with Simplified or Traditional Chinese.

What the two markets share, and what they don’t

They share a script. Traditional characters are standard in both.⁸ The spoken language, the search mix and the legal setup all differ.

	Hong Kong	Taiwan
Script	Traditional 8	Traditional 8
Main spoken language	Cantonese, 88.2% of those aged 5+, 2021 census 18	Mandarin, about 66%, 2020 19
Top search engine, Oct. 2026	Google 89.59% 1	Google 80.02% 2
Second and third	Bing 4.56%, Yahoo! 3.92% 1	Yahoo! 10.9%, Bing 8.12% 2
Baidu, Oct. 2026	0.43% 1	Not in StatCounter’s six 2

Speech figures don’t tell you how people read. They do hint at why vocabulary can drift, since each market writes alongside a different spoken language.

Which search engines matter there?

Google matters most in both. This changes your plan more than any translation choice, because the job isn’t Baidu SEO. It’s Google SEO, in the right words.

Yahoo deserves a look, especially in Taiwan. First Page already flagged it for Hong Kong in 2023.²⁸

There’s a useful wrinkle. A US judge ordered Yahoo to use Microsoft’s search in both markets in October 2013.¹⁵

One April 2026 blog says Yahoo Taiwan still uses Bing with its own tuning, but cites no primary source.¹⁶

We found nothing official and current. If that link still holds, a clean Bing setup may help twice, so check it rather than assume it.

How different is the vocabulary?

Different enough to change your keywords. Chinese Wikipedia keeps a conversion table for computing terms, listing the form for each region:⁷

English	Mainland	Taiwan	Hong Kong
Software	软件	軟體	軟件
Network	网络	網路	網絡
Internet	互联网	網際網路	互聯網
Database	数据库	資料庫	數據庫
Mobile phone	移动电话	行動電話	流動電話
User interface	用户界面	使用者介面	用戶介面

Look closely and a pattern appears. In four of these six rows, Hong Kong uses the mainland word in Traditional characters. Taiwan differs from the mainland in all six.

That’s a small, volunteer-maintained sample, so don’t stretch it into a rule. It does show why Taiwan and Hong Kong can’t simply swap copy.

The gap goes beyond computing:

• Search terms: The Egg reported 電單車 as the top term for motorcycle in Hong Kong, and 機車 in Taiwan, in 2019.³
• Foreign names: John Lennon’s surname is 連儂 in Hong Kong and 藍儂 in Taiwan.⁸
• Brands: One Autohome post lists Mercedes-Benz as 平治 in Hong Kong and Macau, and 宾士 (賓士 in Traditional) in Taiwan.⁹
• Everyday words: Keywords Studios contrasts 草莓 and the Cantonese-based 士多啤梨 for strawberry, adding that 草莓 is widely understood in Hong Kong.⁵

That last example matters. Understood isn’t the same as searched, and a word people recognize may not be the word they type.

Do you need one version or two?

It depends on your terms, and the published advice doesn’t agree.

Source	Position	Evidence given
HI-COM, 2017	Use Taiwanese Mandarin for Traditional markets 4	None cited
The Egg, 2019	Localize each market separately 3	Keyword charts for one term
Elite Asia, 2026	Taiwan copy won’t automatically read naturally in Hong Kong 6	None cited
Keywords Studios, 2026	Depends on voice and community content 5	Linguists’ own examples, games

We found no test measuring rankings or conversions for one version against two. So treat this as a judgment call, and use your own terms to make it.

Your situation	Sensible setup
Buyers mostly in one market	One version, written for that market
Buyers in both, and your key terms match	One version, with a reviewer from the other market
Buyers in both, and your key terms differ	Two versions
Local offer, prices or contacts in each market	Two versions

1. Buyers in both markets?

   No: one version written for that market.

2. Yes: key terms match?

   Yes: one version plus a second reviewer. No: two versions.

How to test your own terms

You can run this before paying for any translation.

1. List your terms. Pick 15 to 20 phrases your buyers would search, in plain English.
2. Ask both markets. Have a native reviewer in each one give the words they’d actually type.
3. Check demand by location. In Google’s Keyword Planner, compare the terms with the location set to Hong Kong, then Taiwan.¹⁷
4. Read the results. Have each reviewer search Google for those terms, then note the words local competitors use.
5. Compare your top five. Apply the rule above.

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How to produce the second version

Write one base version, then adapt it. There’s no need to pay for two full translations from scratch. Start with the market where you have more buyers.

Keep a term sheet from your test, then change these items:

• Key terms, headings and page titles
• Product, partner and foreign names
• Prices, phone numbers and addresses
• Examples and local references, such as holidays ³
• Testimonials and proof that belong to one market

Converters help with drafts, within limits. OpenCC has a preset with Taiwan phrases. It also has a Hong Kong variant preset, but its version with Hong Kong phrases was still in development when we checked.¹⁰ That gap is why Hong Kong needs a closer human review.

Our guides on how to translate your website and machine translation cover the wider process.

Formal Chinese or Cantonese?

For a business site, default to formal written Chinese. Elite Asia says Hong Kong writing often includes Cantonese vocabulary, and HI-COM points to English-influenced sentence structure, both without data.⁴⁶

The choice depends on tone. Formal copy can stay close to standard written Chinese, while playful campaigns may need a local writer. Ask your Hong Kong reviewer, not a converter.

Punctuation, glyphs and fonts

Small details also separate these markets from the mainland. A W3C draft says punctuation sits in the center of the character square in Taiwan and Hong Kong, while mainland rules place it after the character.¹¹

It also says Taiwan uses single quotation marks first, unlike the mainland, though some Taiwan publishers differ.¹¹

The same Unicode character can show a different glyph by convention, which Unicode treats as a font matter.²³ So check your font, and set the right lang value on each version. Adobe’s Source Han Sans comes in Hong Kong and Taiwan versions.²⁴

Hong Kong also has its own supplementary character set, covering Cantonese characters and some place names.²² Check your font if your addresses include these. For web font loading, see fonts, YouTube and embeds.

Which language tags should you use?

Tag what you actually built. Google accepts a script code, with an optional region, and it rejects a region code on its own.¹²

Your setup	Page tags
One version for both markets	zh-Hant
Two versions	zh-Hant-HK and zh-Hant-TW
Mainland version alongside	zh-Hans on that version

Google’s page gives zh-Hant and the form zh-Hans-US, and says the script is derived for zh-TW.¹²

We didn’t see zh-HK on that page, so writing the script out removes the guesswork. W3C advises keeping only the subtags that add something,¹⁴ and with two versions the region does add something.

Illustrative example, with placeholder URLs. Both pages carry both lines, using the link format on Google’s page:¹²

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh-Hant-HK" href="https://example.com/hk/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh-Hant-TW" href="https://example.com/tw/" />

Three rules apply once you have more than one version of a page:¹²¹³

• Each version lists itself and all the others.
• Links must be reciprocal, or they can be ignored.
• Don’t redirect visitors automatically by guessed language.

Where to put those versions is a separate choice. See subfolder, subdomain or separate site. A Hong Kong server is also a separate question from a Hong Kong audience.

Names, trademarks and region labels

Your Chinese name can differ by market, so decide this early. The Mercedes-Benz example above shows how far brands can split.⁹ Our guide to choosing a Chinese brand name covers the method.

Protection doesn’t travel either:

• Hong Kong and Macao: WIPO states that Madrid protection in China doesn’t include them.²⁵
• Taiwan: Lawyers at Lee and Li write that it isn’t part of the Madrid System and can’t be designated in a Madrid application.³⁰ TMarkMetric, a trademark guide site, says a mainland registration gives no rights there.²⁶

Confirm your filing plan with a trademark agent in each market.

Then look at your labels. In January 2018, Marriott’s Chinese website and app were shut for a week.²⁷ A customer questionnaire had listed Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as countries.²⁷

Delta was also told to correct its website.²⁷

Both were large companies with mainland business. We found nothing on how this applies to a foreign firm with no presence there, so ask a local adviser.

If your site also targets the mainland, read our guide to sensitive content on a Chinese website.

The bottom line

One Traditional Chinese version can serve both markets if your key terms match. Test those terms first, because your readers may understand words they’d never search.

Plan for Google first, then Bing and Yahoo, not Baidu, and keep names, tags and trademarks separate by market.

How Index in China can help

What we offer is Simplified Chinese and indexing on Chinese search engines. Hong Kong and Taiwan are a different job, since they run mostly on Google.

If you’re weighing the mainland against Chinese speakers elsewhere, that’s the decision to make first.

Book a 30-minute call

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