# BetterGoChina

> BetterGoChina is an English-language China travel and culture website that helps travelers discover China's cities, places, food, culture, festivals, and travel experiences. It offers curated travel guides, real traveler photos, and honest recommendations across China.

BetterGoChina covers 37 Chinese cities (municipalities, provincial capitals, and special administrative regions including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei), 60+ places and landmarks, 40+ regional dishes across 21 cuisine categories, cultural traditions, festivals, and long-form travel articles. All content is written in English and intended for travelers planning a trip to China.

## Access policy for AI crawlers

The following AI user agents are explicitly allowed to crawl and use public content on this site for training, retrieval, and summarization:

- GPTBot (OpenAI / ChatGPT)
- CCBot (Common Crawl)
- anthropic-ai (Anthropic / Claude)
- Claude-Web (Anthropic / Claude)
- PerplexityBot (Perplexity)
- Googlebot-Extended (Google / Gemini)
- Bytespider (ByteDance)
- Applebot-Extended (Apple)

All public pages are open to AI tools without restriction. This includes city pages, food pages, place pages, articles, and the homepage. No login is required to read public content.

## Site structure

- [Homepage](https://bettergochina.com/): For You feed of curated China travel posts, food, places, and user notes.
- [Cities](https://bettergochina.com/): 37 city detail pages with weather, descriptions, check-ins, categorized photos, and map location. Each city has a dedicated page at `/city/:citySlug` (e.g., `/city/shanghai`).
- [Places](https://bettergochina.com/): 60+ attractions and landmarks across 15 subcategories (Mountains, Rivers & Lakes, Historical Sites, Temples & Shrines, Gardens, Grottoes & Caves, City Walks, Palaces & Mansions, Museums, Scenic Areas, Waterfalls & Springs, Ancient Towns, Bridges & Towers, Shopping, Others). Each place has a dedicated page at `/place/:placeSlug` (e.g., `/place/great-wall`).
- [Food](https://bettergochina.com/): 40+ regional dishes across 21 cuisine categories (Dim Sum, Hot Pot, Peking Duck, BBQ, Noodles, Rice & Staples, regional cuisines, Street Food, Desserts & Sweets, Tea Culture). Each dish has a dedicated page at `/food/:foodSlug` (e.g., `/food/peking-duck`).
- [Articles](https://bettergochina.com/articles): Long-form English travel articles with rich-text content and featured images. Each article has a dedicated page at `/articles/:id`.
- [Culture](https://bettergochina.com/): Chinese cultural traditions, customs, and practices.
- [Festivals](https://bettergochina.com/): Chinese festivals and seasonal celebrations.

## Content formats

- City pages include weather (Celsius), descriptions, user check-ins, categorized photos, and a full China map with province boundaries and location marker.
- Food and Place pages include descriptions, representative images, traveler reactions (Like, Love, Want-to-go, Tried, Not-for-me), comments, and sharing.
- Articles support rich-text content with embedded tag references to cities, places, and food.
- User notes are short-form content with optional images, moderated by admins before public display.

## Sitemap

- [XML Sitemap](https://bettergochina.com/hcgi/api/sitemap.xml): Dynamic sitemap listing all cities, food pages, place pages, and published articles with lastmod, changefreq, and priority.
- [robots.txt](https://bettergochina.com/robots.txt): Crawler directives allowing all user agents.

## Optional

- [BetterGoChina](https://bettergochina.com/): Discover China's best places, food, and culture in English.