Does Google Analytics (GA4) Work in China?
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics service developed by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, user behavior, and marketing performance. It is a go-to tool for businesses to analyse digital performance, optimise customer journeys, and inform data-driven decisions. Google Analytics integrates with advertising platforms, e-commerce systems, and other marketing tools, making it a key part of many global businesses’ marketing stacks.
Keypoints
- Google Analytics is completely blocked in mainland China – Both google-analytics.com and googletagmanager.com domains are inaccessible due to the Great Firewall.
- Severe website performance impact – Blocked GA requests cause 3+ minute loading delays, extending page load times from seconds to over 5 minutes.
- Complete data collection failure – Analytics data from Chinese users never reaches Google’s servers, resulting in incomplete reporting and skewed insights.
- Legal compliance violations – Using Google Analytics violates Chinese data protection laws as personal information cannot be exported overseas without approved mechanisms.
- Compliant alternatives available – Domestic solutions like Baidu Tongji and private cloud deployments offer similar functionality while keeping data within China.
- AppInChina can help you deploy a fully-compliant and effective solution to Google Analytics so you can continue to use it in your stack in China.
Is Google Analytics Available in China?
No. The Google Analytics interface is inaccessible in China. This means any data regarding your business or website will also be inaccessible in China. There are two key reasons why Google Analytics is unavailable in China: China’s Personal Information Law (PIPL) and the Great Firewall.
PIPL Challenge
China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) treats IP addresses, device IDs, and behavioral logs as personal information. Exporting that data overseas requires one of three official transfer mechanisms:
- Government Security Assessment
- Accredited Certification
- CAC “Standard Contract.
Failing to use an approved mechanism constitutes an illegal cross-border transfer. While large-scale penalties have not (yet) targeted GA specifically, the legal risk grows each year as enforcement matures.
The Great Firewall
The domains google-analytics.com and googletagmanager.com have long been blocked by China’s Great Firewall. For users in mainland China, this results in:
- Script time-outs – pages stall while the GA request hangs, hurting Core Web Vitals and conversion rates.
- Incomplete data – events never reach Google’s servers, producing skewed reports.
- Dashboard inaccessibility – the GA4 console (analytics.google.com) is unreachable without a VPN.
Reverse-proxy work-arounds (e.g., self-hosting collect.js and tunneling hits) are fragile, may violate Google’s Terms of Service, and do not solve the PIPL export problem
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What Tests Prove It Is Inaccessible?
- Testing was done through the Chrome DevTools on a network in Mainland China with no VPN or other proxy.
- The page tested was a lightweight static blog: martinliu.cn
- GA4 property ID G-3OEQH7B5E5 left untouched.
| Test | Result | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Two GA4 beacon calls https://www.google-analytics.com/g/collect?v=2&tid=G-3OEQH7B5E5…` | (failed) net::ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT after 3 min 9 s | This value shows that the Great Firewall drops the TCP handshake; browser waits the full timeout. |
| Status bar (DevTools) | Finish = 5 min 3 s **DOMContentLoaded = 1 min 3 s** | Stalled GA requests keep the network queue open. This pushes key milestones 20 to 60 times beyond normal values. |
| Console error | net::ERR_TIMED_OUT for the same /collect URL | Confirms failure came from the client side, not the server. This shows that it is the request being sent from China that is not being received. |
| Waterfall thumbnail (Performance tab) | Long gray bar for gtag/js followed by 12 s LCP spike | GA loader blocks rendering until the timeout frees the main thread. |
What Do These Tests Mean?
- Reachability – The GA4 hit endpoint and the loader script cannot be reached by mainland users.
- Performance penalty – Each blocked request sits in Chrome’s network stack for up to three minutes, delaying DOMContentLoaded and Largest Contentful Paint by an order of magnitude.
- User impact – Even a fast, <30 KB blog turns into a 5-minute load, destroying Core Web Vitals and conversion.
How Can AppInChina Help?
The AppInChina Google Analytics solution provides users with a fully-compliant and accessible
| Option | What we deliver | New value-adds |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic SaaS | One-click integration with Baidu Tongji (百度统计), Ptengine, Umeng (友盟) and other CAC-licensed vendors that keep data onshore and PIPL-compliant. | Full corporate-entity endorsement and documentation packages for ICP filings. |
| Private-cloud | A Matomo / ClickHouse stack inside an ICP-licensed VPC on AWS China, Azure China, Alibaba Cloud or Tencent Cloud. | Free shared Matomo infrastructure for paying customers, plus optional fully isolated custom deployments for stricter privacy needs. |
| Hybrid BI pipelines | Mirrors sanitised, anonymised tables to your global BigQuery or Snowflake while raw logs stay in China. | Engineering playbooks align with CAC security-assessment thresholds, reducing approval cycles. |
All three tracks come with AppInChina’s end-to-end support: our DevOps and software-engineering teams build, monitor and scale your stack, so you don’t need in-house China expertise. Google Analytics may be a critical pillar of your global ops, but inside China it creates more risk than insight. Our solution is fully compliant and effective, so you can keep measuring success without violating the PIPL or slowing your site down.
Ready to localise your data stack? Contact us, and our Beijing-based experts will guide you every step of the way.