Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Does blocking foreign country IP traffic to site, hurt my SEO / US Google rankings?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does blocking foreign country IP traffic to site, hurt my SEO / US Google rankings?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    4
    11539
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • bizzer
      bizzer last edited by

      I have a website is is only of interest to US visitors.  99% (at least) of Adsense income is from the US.  But I'm getting constant attempts by hackers to login to my admin account.  I have countermeasures fo combat that and am initiating others.

      But here's my question: I am considering not allowing any non US, or at least any non-North American, traffic to the site via a Wordpress plugin that does this.  I know it will not affect my business negatively, directly.  However, are there any ramifications of the Google bots of these blocked countries not being able to access my site?  Does it affect the rankings of my site in the US Google searches.

      At the very least I could block China, Russia and some eastern European countries.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Ray-pp
        Ray-pp last edited by

        Honestly, there could be a very real world impact on your SERPs without you understanding it. I suggest not blocking all traffic from foreign countries.

        Let's take this scenario as an example:

        I have an ecommerce website that only sells to the United States. I really only care about the US traffic, since that is where my sales can come from. However, many of my inbound site links seem to be coming from Outside US traffic. This outside US traffic cannot buy from me, in fact, they cannot buy many of the products I sell because they are not available in their country.

        Even so, when investigating my link profile, I notice that some users are getting the products I sell from somewhere and then blogging about how they love the product. They include a link back to my site since they know I sell the product.

        Now, it's true that most traffic from that referral source will not convert to paid users. But, the links they provide are helping me in the SERPs, which brings in the qualified traffic that converts to sales.

        In regards to the bounce rate =: You're not actually decreasing the bounce rate. Instead, you've identified the accurate segment of users to be measuring bounce rate from. In your Google Analytics, you should filter out the foreign traffic so that you're only measuring the correct segment of traffic that is important to you.

        Now you have the best of both worlds - your reports show the accurate target segment and its metrics, as well as, any benefit that comes from the foreign traffic and link building.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • anagentile
          anagentile Subscriber last edited by

          I doubt blocking countries can have any negative effect on your SEO. Like in your case our company's customers are located only in US. We have blocked many foreign countries for exactly the same reasons you name and never had any negative effects on our SEO work due to the IP blocks. It's more...you may actually see a decrease in your website's bounce rates what is supposed to be good for your ranks.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Ray-pp
            Ray-pp last edited by

            I suggest not to block foreign traffic.

            • You do not know why someone might be searching from a foreign country.

            • Foreign traffic may help you identify key content areas for optimization, curation, opportunities, ect

            • Your site may provide value to foreign visitors in some way that you don't yet understand and removing all traffic could have a negative impact. For example: Foreign visitors cite your content and routinely link back to it (helps you in the SERPs).

            If you're seeing many bot attempts on your admin, change its login address. That is a good first measure to preventing brute force attacks.

            You can also use a plugin to limit the login attempts. If a bot comes and tries to login it will be prevented from logging in after X attempts.

            Use a service like Cloudflare for additional security. Cloudflare is a free CDN provider that will give you an additional layer of security for your site. It has a list of known ip abusers and can filter those out from reaching your website.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • shop.nordstrom

              Does cache-control : private hurt SEO?

              Hi, I recently found I can no longer view our web pages in Google's cache. I get 404 errors. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ashop.nordstrom.com%2Fc%2Fwomens-shoes&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&oq=cache%3Ashop.nordstrom.com%2Fc%2Fwomens-shoes&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.3575j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I did a fetch and render in Search Console and found our header includes a "cache-control: private" entry. The 404's started happening recently. Would this response be the culprit? If Google cannot cache the website, is this bad for SEO? On the surface of it, it sounds bad.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shop.nordstrom
              0
            • gorubbishgo

              How to rank my website in Google UK?

              Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least -  I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo
              0
            • KS__

              How to rank for a location/country without having a physical address in that location/country

              How do I go about it if my physical address (office) is in Country A but I want to rank my website in Country B, C and D (without having an office or physical address in the countries B, C and D)? I am aware of people setting up virtual offices in other countries/cities and adding them to Google Places/Maps with toll free phone numbers, but I don't wish to do any of that. I know Google will catch up with this one day or the other and punish me hard for trying to play games with it. Is there a way rank a website in another country without actually having a physical location there? If yes, please guide me how to go about it.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__
              0
            • edward-may

              Ranking on google but not Bing?

              Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing?  

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may
              0
            • VITALBGS

              How to perform Local SEO for sites like Angies List/Task Rabbit or Craigslist

              I have a new SEO client that has a business model similar to Criagslist and Angies List or Task Rabbit, Where they offer local based services nationwide. My first thought was Local link building and citation building etc. But the issue is they are a purely online service company and they don't have a phyiscal address in every city/state they will be offering their services in. What is the best course of action for providing SEO services for this type of business model. I am pretty much at a stand still on how to rank them locally for the areas they provide services in. it's a business model that involves local businesses and customers looking for services from those local businesses.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VITALBGS
              0
            • Endora

              Why am I not ranking in Google, but I am in Yahoo and Bing?

              The website in question is: www.stbarthexclusives.com Our keywords are currently ranking for both Bing and Yahoo, but we're not appearing anywhere on Google. The website is being crawled successfully, but we still don't have any results. I hoping somebody can point me in the general right direction to fix/correct this problem. Additionally, there's a decent amount of "rel=canonical tags" on the website. If that helps your evaluation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Endora
              0
            • pyxle

              Why do SERP Results ( Rankings ) differ from country to country ?

              Hi, I have been doing seo for this client based in Sri lanka for almost 8 months now. Since we started SEO we had set up geographic target setting to UK through google webmaster tools. At the moment Site is completely ranking higher on google uk & other countries except Sri Lanka . On Google.lk site doesn't even come within 1st 5 pages for keywords which are ranked on1st page in other countries ? What do you think about this ? How does it happen ?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pyxle
              0
            • drewzal

              I have a .com site but I am only ranking good on google for Canada and not the USA.

              We are located in Canada but sell our products world wide. We are ranking ok on google.ca but are not in the top 50 on google.com. Is it due to my ip address? Is there any tips that you can give me to help up my rating for google.com. Any info you can provide me with will be amazing. Thanks,

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drewzal
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.