SEO friendly way to redirect users based on IP address
-
Hi There
I have an issue where I need to redirect all visitors from a specific country to a sub-domain, which has content explaining to those users that our service is not offered in that country. I would like to know the most SEO friendly way to do this?
Thanks
Sadie
-
@Melanie - I would monitor both the traffic and rankings - just to make sure that there isn't a sudden change in any regard. I would create an Analytics alert should the traffic suddenly drop by X% so that I was notified immediately and I would use a Rank Checker like SEOmoz has, or WebCEO or whichever one you prefer. If often depends on the site in question though, but I'd just keep an eye on things and if the traffic drops or the ranks decrease, then I'd remove the redirect.
Redirects are tricky and that guide that pasted above (perhaps use this: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/unifying-content-under-multilingual.html) covers quite a lot of what you're after.
The redirection could mess with your rankings, so that's why I suggest monitoring those. If you're not tracking a fairly large keyword basket, then watch the organic traffic closely for fluctuations (or use the notification I mentioned above).
This also depends on what countries you're taking into account and so forth.
-
Thanks for your reply to my question Christopher!
When you say I should monitor the site, are you just referring to the website traffic? or do you mean rankings as well?
Also, what effects will the IP redirection have on SEO?
-
The trickiest part about IP redirection is that a lot of crawlers are US based, and therefore the crawlers may not see many of the pages that currently exist on your site and deserve crawling/ranking. There are cases that I've been involved in where IP detection was crucial, but I've also experienced problems with it.
The best advice I can give you is that if you must redirect, then monitor the website on a daily basis and if the site bounces up or down (all other factors equal), then look at removing the redirection.
Here's a thread that you might like to look over: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/chit-chat/c2gk9cKWJYY
I really hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Javascript and SEO
I've done a bit of reading and I'm having difficulty grasping it. Can someone explain it to me in simple language? What I've gotten so far: Javascript can block search engine bots from fully rendering your website. If bots are unable to render your website, it may not be able to see important content and discount these content from their index. To know if bots could render your site, check the following: Google Search Console Fetch and Render Turn off Javascript on your browser and see if there are any site elements shown or did some disappear Use an online tool Technical SEO Fetch and Render Screaming Frog's Rendered Page GTMetrix results: if it has a Defer parsing of Javascript as a recommendation, that means there are elements being blocked from rendering (???) Using our own site as an example, I ran our site through all the tests listed above. Results: Google Search Console: Rendered only the header image and text. Anything below wasn't rendered. The resources googlebot couldn't reach include Google Ad Services, Facebook, Twitter, Our Call Tracker and Sumo. All "Low" or blank severity. Turn off Javascript: Shows only the logo and navigation menu. Anything below didn't render/appear. Technical SEO Fetch and Render: Our page rendered fully on Googlebot and Googlebot Mobile. Screaming Frog: The Rendered Page tab is blank. It says 'No Data'. GTMetrix Results: Defer parsing of JavaScript was recommended. From all these results and across all the tools I used, how do I know what needs fixing? Some tests didn't render our site fully while some did. With varying results, I'm not sure where to from here.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nhhernandez1 -
Google Search Console "Change of Address" - Failed Redirection Test
I have a client who has a lot of domain variations, which have all been set up in Google Search Console. I requested that the client use the COA feature in GSC for the domains that are now redirecting to other domains that they own (which are set up in GSC). The problem is that we're not redirecting the homepages to the homepages of the destination domains. So, GSC is giving us this error message: fails redirection test: The old site redirects to www.domain.com/blog, which does not correspond to the new site you chose. Is our only way to use GSC COA for these domains to change the homepage redirect to go to the homepage of the destination domain? We don't really want that since the domain we're redirecting is a "blog.domain1.com" subdomain and we want to redirect it to "domain2.com/blog". Any help appreciated! Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kernmedia
Dan0 -
To redirect or not to redirect, that is the question
I work for a software company that is redeveloping the website (same domain.) We have tons of content in the form of articles and documents for support, how to use the product better, case studies, and blog posts. I've downloaded a landing page report and many of these have low impressions and little or no clicks (some ranked high other very low.) Should I redirect all this content to the new site where some of it won't exist or forget about it because of the lack of juice? Is there a rule-of-thumb threshold for redirecting for content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody15969167212220 -
Should I redirect my xml sitemap?
Hi Mozzers, We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain. I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!) It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success! I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc. What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line. Thanks everyone! Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Pagination & SEO
I have the WP-Pagination plugin and I am wondering how to handle duplicate content issues and what's best for SEO. My developer initially downloaded the plugin to speed up loading for the home page. Now my home page has 21 pages of paginated content. But the pagination continues with each of my categories as well. Should I be placing a canonical reference to my home page, or category main page? My site name is gracessweetlife (dot) com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gracessweetlife0 -
Glossary SEO Tactics
A B2B client has a glossary of about 300 terms on its Website. It was done to enhance SEO value. The pages are rarely viewed and the text is often short. What are the best (and wackiest!) ideas to leverage this content for SEO. Here are some: Add videos, images Cross link to content pages Open up comments and get students in this sector to review terms and add their own What else do you suggest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarrAuto0 -
Regarding 301 Redirect!
Hello, I heard that 301 redirect can be good for newly registered domain names can i buy a old domain name and put 301 redirect on it to my newly registered niche market domain name. Shall i buy only 1 domain name and put 301 redirect to my newly registered domain names or i can do this for more than 1 old domains i purchased?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anand20100 -
Local SEO - Business name and web address different
Howdy Local Experts, I'm hoping you can clear up something for me.. I'm setting up some places for a company that's spread across 5 cities. I am creaitng 5 separate locations for this. The company name is not the same as the website name. All the SEO efforts are for the website name ( the brand ) not the parent company name., so... 1. When creating the places do I enter the business name in "company/organisation" and put the brand name in the web site field? Or is it better for seo to have the brand name here as the company name too? 2. Are all 5 listings more or less going to be the same except for the address and phone numbers? I suppose unique photos etc for each location is better here? 3. When creating citations i am essentially going to be building 5 separate "links", one for each place is that correct. So adding the specific location details into the matching state and city business directories etc? 3. The exact business category doesn't accurately show up in the list. Do i select the closest thing here or create custom categories to better match the business. Apologies for the lenghty question, Derek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClickValueMedia0