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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
-
Will changing category URLs on site hurt SEO?
Hi Moz Community, We're looking to replace some URLs on our Wordpress site and I want to make sure we won't hurt our SEO with the changes. The site is lushpalm.com When we originally launched our site we created pages (which are linked to in our main menu) to essentially display our categories. We did this as a workaround because we didn’t like the URL to have the word “category” in it. Now we would like to make some changes and we want to make sure we’re not going to hurt our SEO in any way by accidentally duplicating content or otherwise. We want to fix our structure and now link to our category pages from our main menu, BUT we want to change the URL of the category page so that it doesn’t have “category” in it, essentially renaming it the name of the page currently linked to in our main menu. So basically, the category lushpalm.com/category/surf-trips, would be renamed with the URL lushpalm.com/surf-trips and the current page that is at lushpalm.com/surf-trips would be therefore replaced. My questions are: If we did this, would that mean that the previous “lushpalm.com/category/surf-trips” would cease to exist? Or is there some imprint of that out on the web? And if it is then would it re-direct to the new page? Would replacing the current page URL with a category hurt our current SEO in any way? Would this change cause any duplicate pages somehow? Thanks so much for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TaraLP1 -
Does having multiple Domain aliases hurt SEO rank ?
Our company having multiple domain aliases (DIfferent TLD) like example.com, .net, .org, .club, .win to one site (Same Content). We do this because our country ISP is blocking a few of the domain aliases. Question: Does this hurt the SEO rank? What approach is the best for us to gain SEO Rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | missionunpossible0 -
Paragraphs/Tables for Content & SEO
Hi Does anyone know if Google prefers paragraphs over content in a table, or doesn't it make much difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
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 | | gorubbishgo0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?
Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand. However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues? Or is it an issue with some other penalty? At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm0 -
My .com ranks well in the US but not in the UK or other countries?
My companies is based in the US, but our customer base is 50% international. The majority of our international customers are from english speaking countries like the UK, AU, NZ, etc. We currently rank well for 2 of our industries core keywords in the US, but are not even on the radar in the UK or AU. I do generate international backlinks, although not as much as the US backlinks (approximately 25% intl, 75% US). Should I purchase localized urls like .co.uk or .com.au and point those at my .com? Any guidance the community could provide would be greatly appreciated?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | batchbook0 -
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 | | drewzal0