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.
How can I restrict the domains country by country?
-
Hello,
I have Two Domains one is xyz.co.uk and other is xyz.com
Now, my main target for .com is United States, and I don't want to open that .com domain in any other country especially India. The same with the .co.uk, I dont want to open .co.uk in other countries. I did it with some developer help but it gave me redirected error in Google Webmaster. Can anyone please guide me how I can do this the proper way ? And Other issues is, how can I implement ,if any user in United States open xyz.co.uk than he should redirect to the .com version.
Thank you.
-
There isn't proper way as you want it.
You can make .com and .co.uk country preferred with geo targeting:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399
but this doesn't limit indian users that type english queries to see your sites in SERP. This is best way IMHO.If you need true protection against indian users then you need to make some changes. You can get list of GeoIP database:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.geoip.php
and based on this code to give users access or stop them.
BUT this is very risky in real world since all bots comes from worldwide. Example - if you disable US IPs on .co.uk then you will stop GoogleBot visiting your site too. Also Roger will be stopped, Bing and many other bots. No bots - no ranking... This can be recognized as sneaky redirect.So i don't recommend you to do this geo ip limitation without calculating all pros and cons of this.
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
-
Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?
UPDATED 4/29/2019 4:33 PM I had made to many copy and pastes. Product pages are corrected Upon researching the hreflang x-default tag, I am getting some muddy results for implementation on an international company site older results say just homepage or the country selector but…. My Question/Direction going forward for the International Site I am working on: I believe I can to put x-default all the pages of every country and point it to the default language page for areas that are not covered with our current sites. Is this correct? From my internet reading, the x-default on every page is not truly necessary for Google but it will be valid implemented. My current site setup example:
International SEO | | gravymatt-se
https://www.bluewidgets.com Redirects to https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as US/Global) Example Countries w/ code Site:- 4 countries/directories US/Global, France, Spain Would the code sample below be correct? https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ (functions as US/Global) US/Global Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ US/Global Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/whizzer-5001/ http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions for France) France Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/fr/fr/ France Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products- https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as Spain) Spain Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/ Spain Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 Thanks for the spot check Gravy0 -
How to avoid duplication across multiple country domains
Here's the scenario: I have a client currently running one Shopify site (AU) They want to launch three more country domains (US, UK and EU) They want each to be a standalone site, primarily so the customers can purchase in their local currency, which is not possible from a single Shopify site The inventory is all from the same source The product desscriptions will all be the same as well Question: How do we avoid content duplication (ie. how will canonical tags work in this scenario)?
International SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Targeting Countries in the Middle East
Hi guys, I have a client based in the Middle East using a generic top level domain (.com), and they want to target multiple countries in the GCC (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar etc). I’m thinking that using the hreflang tag would be the best solution here, however the pages will mostly have the exact same content. There will only be slight changes on some pages in terms of using localised title tags [client service] followed by [targeted country], h1's and meta descriptions. Is this the correct approach? And if so should this be implemented side wide or can it be implemented on selected pages only? The site will be in English only.
International SEO | | Jbeetle0 -
Spanish word as English domain name
hi anyine any issues with using Spanish, and other non English words, as domain names when trying to rank in Google uk. We launched a number of websites a while back but finding it hard to get much traction in Google uk. We are getting a reasonable number of impressions but cannot seem to get very high in the rankings. All the names are foreign words for their service. Our homeware website, for example, uses the basque word for furniture as its name. other than potential branding issues of having domains people might struggle to spell, is there any serp issues we would face with these names. thanks
International SEO | | Arropa0 -
In the U.S., how can I stop the European version of my site from outranking the U.S. version?
I've got a site with two versions – a U.S. version and a European version. Users are directed to the appropriate version through a landing page that asks where they're located; both sites are on the same domain, except one is .com/us and the other is .com/eu. My issue is that for some keywords, the European version is outranking the U.S. version in Google's U.S. SERPs. Not only that, but when Google displays sitelinks in the U.S. SERPs, it's a combination of pages on the European site and the U.S. site. Does anyone know how I can stop the European site from outranking the U.S. site in the U.S.? Or how I can get Google to only display sitelinks for pages on the U.S. site in the U.S. SERPs? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this topic!
International SEO | | matt-145670 -
Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?
Hi, I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries? Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this: (cd = Congo, a completely random example) etc... Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option? Thanks in advance for any help! Vince
International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS0 -
.com versus local domains
Hi all, One of my clients has local domain websites in various parts of the world (co.uk etc. etc.) and there has always been a discussion about where a move from local domain (the current set-up) to a targeted .com domain (i.e. .com/uk) would benefit from a SEO perspective. The main reasoning (seo-wise) that keeps coming up is that there'd only be one domain to link to which would help with link juice being passed around. Any thoughts as whether this would actually be the case or if this possible benefit would be outweighed by other cons? Recent moves (local to .com) from a few websites (the Guardian newspaper in the UK being the most recent one off the top of my head) has made me start thinking about it again! Diana
International SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0 -
Country specific domains pointing to a .com site
Hello, I am new to seo so please be easy if this happens to be a "silly" question. My company has a .com site. We are expanding into global markets, focusing on specific countries right now. General question: Would I be penalized for duplicate content if I purchased country-specific domains and pointed them to the .com site? Thanks, Jim
International SEO | | jimmer0