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.
What IP Address does Googlebot use to read your site when coming from an external backlink?
-
Hi All,
I'm trying to find more information on what IP address Googlebot would use when arriving to crawl your site from an external backlink.
I'm under the impression Googlebot uses international signals to determine the best IP address to use when crawling (US / non-US) and then carries on with that IP when it arrives to your website?
E.g. - Googlebot finds www.example.co.uk. Due to the ccTLD, it decides to crawl the site with a UK IP address rather than a US one. As it crawls this UK site, it finds a subdirectory backlink to your website and continues to crawl your website with the aforementioned UK IP address.
Is this a correct assumption, or does Googlebot look at altering the IP address as it enters a backlink / new domain?
Also, are ccTLDs the main signals to determine the possibility of Google switching to an international IP address to crawl, rather than the standard US one? Am I right in saying that hreflang tags don't apply here at all, as their purpose is to be used in SERPS and helping Google to determine which page to serve to users based on their IP etc.
If anyone has any insight this would be great.
-
There's a few things you need to marry up if you want to do this. You need the referring page or domain / hostname (to validate that the session came from a backlink you know about). Once you filter the data down like that, you just need to filter by user-agent ("googlebot" - or any user-agent string which contains "googlebot"). Then you just want to look at the IP address field in the tabular data and you have your answers!
Here's the problem, most IP-level data is contained within basic server-side analysis packages (like AWStats which is installed on most sites, within the cPanel) or alternatively you can go to the log files for much of the same data. Most referrer-level data (stuff that deals with attribution) is contained within Analytics suites like Adobe Omniture or Google Analytics.
In GA, you can't usually get to 'individual' IP-level data. There used to be a URL hack to force it to render, but it was killed off (and many people who used it were banned by Google). The reason for that is, Google don't want too much PID (Personally Identifiable Data) harvested by their tool. It creates too many legal issues for Google (and also, whomever is leveraging that data for potentially nefarious marketing purposes)
Since you won't get enough IP-level data from GA, you're going to have to go to log files and log analysis tools instead. Hopefully they will contain at least some referral level data... The issue is, getting all the pieces you want to align in a legally compliant way
Obviously you have your reasons for looking. I'd check if you can find anything on your CPanel in AWStats (if that's installed) or get the log files and analyse them with something like Screaming Frog Log File Analyser
I can't promise this will return the data you want, but it's probably your only hope
-
Hi,
First of all "Google crawls from many IPs and they have confirmed that they do periodically add new ones. And there are also various Googlebot useragents, not just the regular one. This is why Google doesn't publish a list of all the IPs, because there are so many of them and they can change" .
You can see full conversation here @ https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/4fKthSy7oFQ/GgslLXJnDQAJ
Second Today Google says "IP Addresses Don't Matter For Backlinks & Search Rankings"
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ip-addresses-backlinks-rankings-26561.html
Hope this helps
Thanks
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
-
Mobile Googlebot vs Desktop Googlebot - GWT reports - Crawl errors
Hi Everyone, I have a very specific SEO question. I am doing a site audit and one of the crawl reports is showing tons of 404's for the "smartphone" bot and with very recent crawl dates. If our website is responsive, and we do not have a mobile version of the website I do not understand why the desktop report version has tons of 404's and yet the smartphone does not. I think I am not understanding something conceptually. I think it has something to do with this little message in the Mobile crawl report. "Errors that occurred only when your site was crawled by Googlebot (errors didn't appear for desktop)." If I understand correctly, the "smartphone" report will only show URL's that are not on the desktop report. Is this correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Merging Niche Site
I posted a question about this a while ago, but still haven't pulled the trigger. I have a main site (bobsclothing.com). I also have a EM niche site (i.e shirtsmall.com). It would be more efficient for me to merge these site, because: I would have to manage content, promos, etc. on a single site. In other words, I can focus efforts on 1 site. If I am writing content, I don't have to split the work. I don't have to worry about duplicate content. Right now, if I enter a product URL into copyscape, the other sites is returned for many products. What makes me apprehensive are: The niche site actually ranks for more keywords than the main site, although it has lower revenue. Slightly lower PA, and DA. Niche site ranks top 20 for a profitable keyword that has about 1300 exact match searches. If you include the longer tail versions of the keyword it would be more. If I merge these sites, and do proper 301s (product to product, category to category) how likely is it that main site will still rank for that keyword? Am I likely to end up with a site that has stronger DA? Am I better off keeping the niche site and just focusing content efforts on the few keywords that it can rank well for? I appreciate any advice. If someone has done this, please share your experience. TIA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
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.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0 -
Using Canonical URL to poin to an external page
I was wondering if I can use a canonical URL that points to a page residing on external site? So a page like:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | llamb
www.site1.com/whatever.html will have a canonical link in its header to www.site2.com/whatever.html. Thanks.0 -
Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??
Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qdigi0 -
Can I Improve Organic Ranking by Restrict Website Access to Specific IP Address or Geo Location?
I am targeting my website in US so need to get high organic ranking in US web search. One of my competitor is restricting website access to specific IP address or Geo location. I have checked multiple categories to know more. What's going on with this restriction and why they make it happen? One of SEO forum is also restricting website access to specific location. I can understand that, it may help them to stop thread spamming with unnecessary Sign Up or Q & A. But, why Lamps Plus have set this? Is there any specific reason? Can I improve my organic ranking? Restriction may help me to save and maintain user statistic in terms of bounce rate, average page views per visit, etc...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit1 -
Backlinks from Chinese Big sites
Hello, I wish I know your position regarding backlinks from chinese websites. I am able to get a text link(from homepage) from a very big site in chinese. It has PR8 and over 10M users monthly. My site is in english. Will it help me ? Will I be penalised (my site is 5 years old, PR4) and some decent traffic(6-7k daily) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adresanet0