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mneylon

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Has anyone got any experience in setting up geoip based redirects?

One of the things that concerns me is that Google, Yahoo and most of the other spiders use US IPs, so they could get redirected to the US version of the site and not "see" the other versions..

Any thoughts?
 

louie

New Member
you can use (in php)

$ip = getenv ( "REMOTE_ADDR" ); # get IP address
$ip_name = gethostbyaddr ( $ip );

that will give you:

089-101-116088.ntlworld.ie
089-101-116088.ntlworld.ie

or you can use IP2country database
 

mneylon

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I'm not too worried about the database side of it as we have a maxmind subscription.. what I am worried about is getting round sending spiders to the wrong location
 

RedCardinal

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And most of all take care not to do anything that might appear like cloaking or you run the risk of getting bowled.

I presume Aer Lingus has you thinking about this ;)

WRT letting SE's see other versions of site, why not simply use internal linking and they will crawl the other versions? There's a good chance the SE's will be able to figure out which content is most applicable.

Are you going to have multiple content on each URI or are you going to redirect to multiple URIs based on geotargeting (country in the query string or something similar)?
 

mneylon

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The Aer Lingus fiasco is an aside :)

Basically what I want to do is setup something like shop.domain.tld and based on the user's ip redirect them to the correct Amazon version.

For example, if the user has a US IP they would see .com content, whereas a user from a German speaking country would get the .de content. I'd also have links to the other versions on the page so that users could choose to use a different version if they wanted...

Does that make sense?
 

louie

New Member
Would you not be better off having a select menu at the top of the page to go to different domains.

There is an example: www.alpine.com

this way you don't break any rules and search engine can spiders all of them having the links properly displayed.
 

mneylon

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The problem is that forcing a user to select from a menu makes them work, so you are less likely to make a sale
 

RedCardinal

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Sorry wasn't getting the full picture.

Then probably just create your content with geotargeted results and just let the spiders crawl the different versions via whatever links you use between the different versions. Visitors get redirected to whatever content suits them based on their IP.

Make sure whatever linking method you use is spiderable (drop-downs with javascript redirects to be avoided if possible). Footer links like on amazon.com would be best for spiders.

If your pages are only going to contain scrapped amazon items then you are probably never going to rank to well in the SE's unless you can gather a pretty (read: seriously) large amount of backlinks to those subdomains and internal pages.

Tough one from an SEO perspective.
 

mneylon

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If your pages are only going to contain scrapped amazon items then you are probably never going to rank to well in the SE's unless you can gather a pretty (read: seriously) large amount of backlinks to those subdomains and internal pages.

Tough one from an SEO perspective.
The script I'm using is pretty good at giving each section a unique enough URI, so I haven't been penalised as yet. In fact my earnings have been climbing very nicely :)
 

louie

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The problem is that forcing a user to select from a menu makes them work, so you are less likely to make a sale

The ip2country is the best option but is too much work and you have to keep your database up to scratch all the time.

Having some links to different domains based on the country or tlc you have i found it simpler and to the point. As I said redirection is not good for the search engines unless you give a 302 header, then if the content is the same on everyone of them - they don't like that either.

Those links can be in small font at the top of the page or footer.

Have a look at Amazon. They do that, and beleive they do have the power to create a script to do it automatically, but they don't.

Question is WHY?

Answer: Search engines and you can never be 100% sure they are from ireland, so if you keep sending them to UK site, you lost a customer.
 

RedCardinal

New Member
How many pies have you got those fingers in?

Care to disclose the site address so I can have a peek at what you are doing?
 

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
The ip2country is the best option but is too much work and you have to keep your database up to scratch all the time.

Maxmind updates automatically via a cronjob, so that's a non-issue

Having some links to different domains based on the country or tlc you have i found it simpler and to the point.

That would work in some circumstances, but not in the situation I'm thinking of. Besides I can't register a .ca domain due to the restrictions.


Have a look at Amazon. They do that, and beleive they do have the power to create a script to do it automatically, but they don't.

They're also the market leader in that field. Dell and a lot of others do it and for good reason.
There wouldn't be much point in serving up English language content to visitors from France, for example.

Amazon have also implemented geoip recently with the great big banner asking you if you want to go to the UK site, which happens to be served from Dublin :)
 

louie

New Member
Amazon have also implemented geoip recently with the great big banner asking you if you want to go to the UK site, which happens to be served from Dublin :)

I have to say I haven't seen that yet.
 

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
You making much from Amazon referrals Michel?
Enough to get DVDs, books and music, but not huge amounts. I make more from other sources on a per period basis, but I like that I can spend the amazon earnings at Amazon - sort of like free money / free DVDs
 
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