GeoIP and redirects
-
I have been looking at an ecommerce site that uses a GeoIP module to take users to the relevant store, eg:
domain.com/uk domain.com/us
domain.com/euro
domain.com/rowAfter using the SEO Moz site crawler, the GeoIP module is using 302 redirects to take users to the relevant page. So, domain.com 302s to domain.com/uk and so on.
What is the impact of this in terms of SEO? Only the US version of the site was crawled by the site crawler, presumably because this was due to the US version of the site being shown based on the IP address. Links to the other stores are clearly placed in the header of the site but they weren't crawled.
Thanks in advance
-
Thanks for the replies. I created a sitemap for each store last week. I added the links to the robots.txt and also submitted them to Google.
The SEO Moz site crawler now crawls the full site content, but the pages are still recorded as 302 redirects.
The GWT figures are completely wrong where it displays the number of indexed pages..
-
Hi Edward,
I'm really not a fan of GeoIP detection - not because of cloaking - broadly speaking you're fine on that front.
That said I have seen sites that have clearly tripped some sort of cloaking filter and been penalised as a result; they were using GeoIP to deliver either US or UK content on the same page - rather than pushing to .com or .com/uk. But that's kind of off-topic
The potential issue of redirecting people based on GeoIP is that if you don't make your whole site crawlable for the search bots, they'll typically only be able to access and therefore crawl / index the US content (Google mostly crawls from a US IP).
As you can well imagine - if only your US content is accessible to the bots, then that's the only content that ever stands a chance of ranking.
Just an aside - I also don't like it from a UX perspective; just because I'm in the US right now doesn't necessarily mean I'd like to see US content.
As such I prefer to use GeoIP detection, then let the user decide which content they'd like to view. Cheapflights handle this pretty well - if you visit cheapflights.com from the UK you get pushed to this international choice page - http://www.cheapflights.com/workers/profile-select.aspx?sref=CFUK&redirect=GeoIP&geoip=GB&cfref=CFUS&spt=Home&rp=/ - you can then decide which content you'd like to see. Plus the bots can crawl both versions easily.
Hope this helps
Hannah
-
Google has never been 100% clear on how to address this specific issue since serving up different versions of a site depending on where the user is located is considered grey hat, but obviously it makes sense from a user's perspective to provide the most relevant content to them as possible. As you stated, the site crawler/search engines will only access the version of the site accessible to them depending on the IP address they are using at the time so that explains why only the US version of the site was crawled. If you changed the IP to one in the UK, then it would likely crawl that version of the site.
Anyways, I think the best route would be to set up a new sitemap for each version of the site and submit them in Google Webmaster Tools. I came across this blog post which did exactly this and it seemed to resolve their problems - http://www.stateofsearch.com/how-to-use-multiple-sitemaps-on-one-domain-for-geo-targeting/. Hope that 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
-
International SEO & redirects - do these solutions make sense?
I’m currently working on SEO for an international website with subdirectories set up for each international version. The site is has never had any SEO previously and is having a lot of indexing and visibility issues. Also geotargeting seems very off in search results. I’ve diagnosed various issues and want to check my assumptions and solutions below make sense... The root domain uses a 302 redirect to display content from the /en-GB page. (302 redirects seem to be a default language fallback setting configured in the CMS) and they’re used for most key pages. I’m concerned these redirects are contributing to a lot of the issues with incorrect indexing. The en-GB is the default language version of the site. So far, the en-GB has been set as the canonical version too. Both the root domain and this subdirectory URL display the same content. (en-US is also a near duplicate page). All other international homepages appear only on their subfolder URL. Various SEO tools have been showing redirect loops (caused by language changing parameter versions of URLs being crawled that don’t have redirects on them) and issues with hreflang and canonicals. I believe the hreflang tags and canonicals have been ignored due to relative URLs being used for each, as search results don’t always contain the desired versions of the URLs (in terms of regional version and preferred canonical versions). My questions are: Could these 302 redirects be conflicting with hreflang tags? If so, I’m thinking they should be removed (if not made 301s). GSC doesn’t like the fact these are on key pages, as redirected pages are listed in the sitemap. Will changing hreflang tags and canonical tags to absolute URLs possibly be enough to fix these issues from what you can tell? (Or will redirects need to go too?) Is the en-GB correctly set as the canonical when the root domain is also accessible, indexed and using this page’s content within the CMS too? (I feel like the root domain should be the canonical version, but not sure that works together with other language version subfolders or with a redirect in place from root to subfolder). As an extra point to the last question, GSC has recently chosen the root domain as the canonical (despite en-GB being set as user preference) and is now choosing to deindex some international versions of the homepage as a result. Hoping that getting the hreflang tags fixed and possibly redirects removed should correct this ASAP. But perhaps this also confirms en-GB should be the canonical and marked X-default too. I hope that all makes sense and sorry it’s a small collection of related questions. Really appreciate any replies.
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
GeoIP Redirects & hreflang
Hello, We believe we've had some issues with hreflang tags not remaining validated due to the implementation of geoIP redirects. Previously, if a user clicked a landing page on Google search that was not targeted for their territory, they would instantly be redirected to a sub path that targets their territory using geoIP redirects. We're planning to remove the initial geoIP redirects and have messaging that prompts the user to either stay on the page they've landed on, or be redirected to page that is right for their territory. However, if a user has selected to be redirected to a sub path that is targeted for their territory, they will have a cookie preference set for the IP location they've selected, and will continue to be redirected to their chosen sub path. My question is, will a crawler follow and trigger the geo preference cookie, which could potentially cause complexities in validating hreflang tags and ranking of content for the right market. Thanks.
International SEO | | SEONOW1230 -
Redirect to 'default' or English (/en) version of site?
Hi Moz Community! I'm trying to work through a thorny internationalization issue with the 'default' and English versions of our site. We have an international set-up of: www.domain.com (in english) www.domain.com/en www.domain.com/en-gb www.domain.com/fr-fr www.domain.com/de-de and so on... All the canonicals and HREFLANGs are set up, except the English language version is giving me pause. If you visit www.domain.com, all of the internal links on that page (due to the current way our cms works) point to www.domain.com/en/ versions of the pages. Content is identical between the two versions. The canonical on, say, www.domain.com/en/products points to www.domain.com/products. Feels like we're pulling in two different directions with our internationalization signals. Links go one way, canonical goes another. Three options I can see: Remove the /en/ version of the site. 301 all the /en versions of pages to /. Update the hreflangs to point the EN language users to the / version. **Redirect the / version of the site to /en. **The reverse of the above. **Keep both the /en and the / versions, update the links on / version. **Make it so that visitors to the / version of the site follow links that don't take them to the /en site. It feels like the /en version of the site is redundant and potentially sending confusing signals to search engines (it's currently a bit of a toss-up as to which version of a page ranks). I'm leaning toward removing the /en version and redirecting to the / version. It would be a big step as currently - due to the internal linking - about 40% of our traffic goes through the /en path. Anything to be aware of? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated.
International SEO | | MaxSydenham0 -
Shall I automatically redirect international visitors from www.domain.com to e.g. www.domain.com/es? What is best SEO practice?
We have chosen the one domain approach with our international site having different language versions in subdirectory of main domain:
International SEO | | lcourse
www.domain.com/es
www.domain.com/it
etc. What is SEO-wise best practice for implementing international index pages. I see following options: entering www.domain.com will display without redirection the index page in language of user (e.g based on IP or browser) in www.domain.com
Example: www.booking.com entering www.domain.com will always show English index page.
Additionally one may display a message in the header if IP from other country with link to other language version.
Example: www.apple.com entering www.domain.com will always redirect automatically to country specific subdirectory based on IP
Example: www.samsung.com Any thoughts/suggestions on what may be best solution from a SEO perspective? For a user I believe options 1) & 3) are preferable.0 -
If I redirect based on IP will Google still crawl my international sites if I implement Hreflang
We are setting up several international sites. Ideally, we wouldn't set up any redirects, but if we have to (for merchandising reasons etc) I'd like to assess what the next best option would be. A secondary option could be that we implement the redirects based on IP. However, Google then wouldn't be able to access the content for all the international sites (we're setting up 6 in total) and would only index the .com site. I'm wondering whether the Hreflang annotations would still allow Google to find the International sites? If not, that's a lot of content we are not fully benefiting from. Another option could be that we treat the Googlebot user agent differently, but this would probably be considered as cloaking by the G-Man. If there are any other options, please let me know.
International SEO | | Ben.JD0 -
CcTLDs 301 redirected to subfolders
My client has an international website and currently has a mixture of ccTLDs, subdomains, and subfolders for the country specific pages. We are trying to change this however they want to have ccTLDS because of the SEO benefit but 301 redirect them to subfolders because of the simplicity of management that subfolders provide. I believe that if they are really just working with subfolders, why don't they just use subfolders and use Google Webmaster Tools and XML Sitemaps to help Google understand each targeted country. My questions are: 1. Does having aht ccTLD example.ca 301 redirected to example.com/ca really benefit anything? 2. This client tends to spell out the name of the country even with country specific TLDs, and they can't change it, will this affect SEO? Ex: example.ca/canada. 3. What the best practice? example.ca/canada/en-ca/city or example.ca/canada/city/en-ca? Thanks!
International SEO | | nrv0 -
Does 301 redirect on homepage impact seo strongness of this page
Hi, we are running a multilingual website with this structure : http://www.website.com/en
International SEO | | Samuraiz
http://www.website.com/fr
http://www.website.com/de
http://www.website.com/lang (etc.) with then all onsite URLs this way:
http://www.website.com/en/hello
http://www.website.com/fr/bonjour
http://www.website.com/it/ciao We have a 301 redirect on http://www.website.com going to http://www.website.com/en - except if a user already went on the website and chose a specific language. My question is : Do you think the english homepage will have more seo power if it goes directly to http://www.website.com/ I wonder if we lose some linkjuice with the 301 redirection, as many backlink goes directly to http://www.website.com1 -
Redirecting users based on location
My site is available in EN, DE, SW, SP, FR, IT, CH and JP. However, the EN sites ranks much better than the other languages, and even when searching in another language the EN homepage is normally the result that appears. Would it be worthwhile to automatically redirect users to the site in the same language they are searching in or country they are searching from? If so, how do I go about this? Thanks!
International SEO | | theLotter0