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Actually, one last minor touch!

In this case, the US site is a 'coming soon' page. Is it necessary at this point to put the 'Choose Location' link in it (so that Google Bots follow the link to find the AU site, because they'll be initially redirected to the US site), or will the Google Bots find the AU site naturally through our other SEO efforts (and be able to index it because they've followed links that won't redirect them to the US site)?

Amazing. Exactly what I wanted to hear. After all the other posts that I've read, I think you've summed it up perfectly, as a lot of the other posts really didn't answer it technically or as specifically.

I agree with the setup proposed above and will see if my client's dev team can implement for him.

Thanks, Lincoln

Hi Frederico,

Understood regarding the subdomains. I've always thought subfolders to be a cleaner and more professional approach, especially when it comes to SEO.

What would I ask for from a technical standpoint for the following two options. Appreciate you clarifying for me:

Option 1 (best option) - subfolders

An Australian visitor visits domain.com and is redirected to domain.com/au - the website remembers that this person is Australian. The same Australian visitor then visits the site from the US and the domain.com/au site shows.

The same as Logitech, they have an option to select a different country via a link at the bottom of the page, and if they do so, the website remembers for next time.

Option 2 - subdomains

Idea A: An Australian visitor visits domain.com and is redirected to au.domain.com the first time. domain.com remembers this preference the first time and redirects them there every time thereafter.

The same as Logitech, the user has an option to select a different location, which would update domain.com to remember a different location next time.

**Idea B: **An Australian visitor visits domain.com - the first time they visit they are prompted to select a location. This remembers the preference and every time thereafter would redirect them there.

The same as Logitech, the user has an option to select a different location, which would redirect them to domain.com to update their location preference.

Not sure I follow you on 302 redirect. You mean once the fix has been coded?

Thanks Frederico!

Frederico, this is exactly the advice I was looking for. Just the simple statement that bots should be treated as a user and not 'forced' is obvious logic I've overlooked.

I believe that then the best scenario for my situation is the same as Logitech:

• User enters and is redirected by location when they visit domain.com
• When redirected to us.domain.com or au.domain.com they then have the option to change location using a link in the footer and by cookies are not forced to change location again

Now to have the developers figure out how to code this. I wonder if you might shed light on the technical terminology of exactly what style of redirection this is? IP redirection w/ cookies, plus choose location page that updates cookies?

Cheers, Linc.

I have a client that has an international website. The website currently has IP detection and redirects you to the subdomain for your country. They have currently only launched the Australian website and are not yet open to the rest of the world: https://au.domain.com/

Google is not indexing the Australian website or pages, instead I believe that the bots are being blocked by the IP redirection every time they try to visit one of the Australian pages. Therefore only the US 'coming soon' page is being properly indexed. So, I would like to know the best way to place a geolocation redirection without creating a splash page to select location? User friendliness is most important (so we don't want cookies etc).

I have seen this great Whiteboard Friday video on Where to Host and How to Target, which makes sense, but what it doesn't tell me is exactly the best method for redirection except at about 10:20 where it tells me what I'm doing is incorrect. I have also read a number of other posts on IP redirection, but none tell me the best method, and some are a little different examples...

I need for US visitors to see the US coming soon page and for Google to index the Australian website. I have seen a lot about JS redirects, IP redirects and .htaccess redirects, but unfortunately my technical knowledge of how these affect Google's bots doesn't really help.

Appreciate your answers.

Cheers, Lincoln