Redirect based on location best practice clarification?
-
Hi, i have a question that i have seen some other have also had. The question is what is the best practice to serve the location specific page to the user (based on their location)?
This post (http://www.seomoz.org/q/redirecting-users-based-on-location) suggests against automatically redirecting the user based on IP address. I guess the primary concern is that Google bot will also be redirected in this case...
I see a number of well known sites use automatic redirect based on location. Take Urbanspoon for example (http://www.urbanspoon.com/), they use a 302 redirect to redirect to location specific page.
- Do they not redirect Google bot? Is there any way to test this?
- Can creating a rule to exclude crawlers from redirect cause SEO problems? How?
Another example that i am somewhat confused as to how it works effectively is groupon.com.au
It selects my closest city (i assume using IP), however the URL stays as the root URL. For example, i typed in http://www.groupon.com.au/ and it stays as http://www.groupon.com.au/ with the city chosen as "Melbourne". The canonical url for this page is the root URL (ie http://www.groupon.com.au/).
If you then select "change city" and click the same city (ie Melbourne), it redirects to http://www.groupon.com.au/deals/melbourne. Canonical URL of this page is http://www.groupon.com.au/deals/melbourne.
- How is this not duplicate content?
Can you please advise on the best way to redirect (ideally automatically), to provide the best user experience, while still having Google bot able to crawl the site effectively?
Thanks
-
Have a script to detect if Googlebot is present. If it is, have the main site, without geo-location personalization. If it's not, redirect using 302, and canonicalize just like Groupon. This is NOT a violation of Google's TOS, because you are doing it to provide personalized results for site visitors, and not doing it to trick Google. Geo-redirection is a perfectly valid user experience concept under those circumstances.
As for Groupon leaving the URL at the root, they're just populating the content behind the scenes (at the code level) for those users. Again, it's for a high value user experience, not to trick search engines.
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
-
Have Your Thoughts Changed Regarding Canonical Tag Best Practice for Pagination? - Google Ignoring rel= Next/Prev Tagging
Hi there, We have a good-sized eCommerce client that is gearing up for a relaunch. At this point, the staging site follows the previous best practice for pagination (self-referencing canonical tags on each page; rel=next & prev tags referencing the last and next page within the category). Knowing that Google does not support rel=next/prev tags, does that change your thoughts for how to set up canonical tags within a paginated product category? We have some categories that have 500-600 products so creating and canonicalizing to a 'view all' page is not ideal for us. That leaves us with the following options (feel it is worth noting that we are leaving rel=next / prev tags in place): Leave canonical tags as-is, page 2 of the product category will have a canonical tag referencing ?page=2 URL Reference Page 1 of product category on all pages within the category series, page 2 of product category would have canonical tag referencing page 1 (/category/) - this is admittedly what I am leaning toward. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! If this were in relation to an existing website that is not experiencing indexing issues, I wouldn't worry about these. Given we are launching a new site, now is the time to make such a change. Thank you! Joe
Web Design | | Joe_Stoffel1 -
Help with 302 Temporary Redirect warning via MOZ crawl
Hi Guys, This is my first post so hopefully I'm using the forum correctly. MOZ crawl tells me that I have 35 pages with a temporary redirect The URL column displays 302 Found along with the http:// URL Redirection Location column shows the corresponding https:// URL This all seems pretty self explanatory. However, I’ve checked my .htaccess file and I can’t see any 302 references in it. I'm trying to figure out where the 302 redirects are from and how I can make them permanent Please can anyone help me out? My .htaccess looks like it needs a little tidy (there are 2 if blocks) <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
Web Design | | ianalannash
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.mysite.com/$1 [R,L]</ifmodule> BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule> END WordPress0 -
Needs clarification: How "Disallow: /" works?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. I have noticed we have given "Disallow: /" in one of our sub-directory beside homepage. So, how it going to work now? Will this "Disallow: /" at sub-directory level going to disallow only that directory or entire website? If it is going to work for entire website; we have already given one more Disallow: / at homepage level blocking few folders. How it is going to handle with two Disallow: / commands? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Can a cloud based firewall affect my search ranking?
Hi, I recently implemented a firewall on my website to prevent hacking attacks. We were getting a crazy amount of people per day trying to brute force our website. I used the sucuri cloud proxy firewall service which they claim because of the super fast caching actually helps SEO. I was just wondering is this true? Because we're slowly falling further and further down the SERPS and i really don't know why. If not, is there any major google update recently I don't know about? Thanks, Robert
Web Design | | BearPaw880 -
Best practice for multilanguage website ( PHP feature based on Browser or Geolocalisation)
Hi Moz Experts I would like to know what does it the best practice for multilanguage website for the default language ? There are several PHP features to help users to get the right language when they come from SEO and direct; present the default language by browser language, by gelolocalisation, etc. However, which one is the most appropriate for Quebec company that try to get outside Canada ? PRO and CONS. Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | johncurlee0 -
Wordpress - redirecting tags
I just ran a webmaster tool from Yoast SEO premium and notice I have a lot of problems with tags (restricted-robots-txt) For example : http://www.soobumimphotography.com/tag/wedding-group-photo/ Do I have to redirect to http://www.soobumimphotography.com/wedding-group-photo/ Should I do this to each and every posts Thank you
Web Design | | soobumim0 -
Redirection Problem
Wondering if anyone could offer some tips here please. I cannot share the site name so will try and be as detailed as possible. My client had their site on a .com domain and have decided to move to a co.uk domain. The new site has been put on the uk domain with more or less the same structure, save for pages which have been removed or merged. I am now setting up 301 redirects to tell the engines about the moved site, however this is giving me no end of grief. I can get domain.com to redirect to domain.co.uk no problems, however, if I try and redirect any of the inner pages to their new locations they all end up on the .co.uk home not where they should be. Given the homepage isn't designed to rank for all the terms. The htaccess I am using is below, I cannot see anything wrong with it, can anyone else? Redirect 301 / http://newdomain.co.uk/
Web Design | | carl_daedricdigital
Redirect 301 /villa_rental.php http://newdomain.co.uk/villa_rental.html
Redirect 301 /new_home.php http://newdomain.co.uk/new_home.html
Redirect 301 /http://newdomain.com/villas.php http://newdomain.co.uk/villastyles.html
Redirect 301 /developments.php http://newdomain.co.uk/developments.html
Redirect 301 /solana_hills.php http://newdomain.co.uk/solana_hills.html
Redirect 301 /middle_east.php http://newdomain.co.uk/middle_east.html
Redirect 301 /denia.php http://newdomain.co.uk/denia.html
Redirect 301 /faq.php http://newdomain.co.uk/faq.html I have tried both relative and full paths for the old site but doesn't make any difference. Does it matter the old site is php and the new html? many thanks0 -
Main page redirect affecting search results?
Question.... A recent change was made to our page www.BGU.edu by a marketing person. So now when you type in www.BGU.edu it actually redirects to a different page www.BGU.edu/inquiry This is a really bad idea isn't it? I do not know enough about SEO to know a lot, and just joined SEOmoz but do I need to tell the admin to change it back?
Web Design | | nongard10