What is the best way to execute a geo redirect?
-
Based on what I've read, it seems like everyone agrees an IP-based, server side redirect is fine for SEO if you have content that is "geo" in nature. What I don't understand is how to actually do this. It seems like after a bit of research there are 3 options:
-
You can do a 301 which it seems like most sites do, but that basically means if google crawls you in different US areas (which it may or may not) it essentially thinks you have multiple homepages. Does google only crawl from SF-based IPs?
-
302 passes no juice, so probably don't want to do that.
-
Yelp does a 303 redirect, which it seems like nobody else does, but Yelp is obviously very SEO-savvy. Is this perhaps a better way that solves for the above issues?
Thoughts on what is best approach here?
-
-
You are welcome.
Hmmmm.. don't know about Yelp, I've seen others using 303 too, but still 302 seems to be the way to go.
-
Thanks Federico. Any insight as to why Yelp, who is very seo savvy, uses a 303?
-
Well, personally I would go with a 302.
The reasons are:
301: the browser "remembers" that 301, so next time the user request that page, their browser will automatically redirect as the last time it accessed the page. However, the 302, as a temporary redirect will let the browser know that it should re-request the page.
Say your website www.example.com holds an english version in the root, and then a german version in www.example.com/de. If a german user accesses the site for the first time, you do the geolocation check and redirect to german version while saving a session/cookie of the chosen version. Then if the user chooses to switch to the english version you update that cookie/session to save the one that the user chose to navigate and make a 302 redirection. Next time the user accesses, having the cookie will automatically show/redirect to the appropriate language.
Using the same example, if you did a 301, then even if the user changed the language, as the browser already has a 301-permanent redirect, he will be redirected to the "first version served".
SEOwise, if we take a quick look on Google, they use 302 to redirect users to the "appropriate" version, so I guess that should be ok as long as you use rel="alternate" to point to the other versions of your site:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
EDIT: link juice flows to the page that the link is pointing. Say a link points to www.example.com then the juice goes to www.example.com, even if that page has a redirection to the german version (when accessed from germany). Anyway, it is said that 302s also pass some pagerank.
Hope that helped.
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
-
301 Redirect or landing page
Hi everyone. I'm currently doing some SEO for a client, at the moment he has some landing pages which are categorised, but the category is set as a 302 redirect. I have a dilemma whether to 301 redirect to the landing page or make a page for each category. The link structure is as follows - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/product/ so currently this is set as a 302 redirect - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/ Do I make this page a category page and link the page to the children with some on-page optimisation or 301 redirect it?
On-Page Optimization | | Unbranded_Lee0 -
Best category page structure on MY ecommerce site? Advice please
Hi all, I run the site: http://goo.gl/YATL2i I have had this category set up like this for a while now - but wonder if its confusing to google, and potentially my users... let me start by saying my products are available in 3 formats (soon to be 4), so for example i have 3 pages for cctv systems: Analogue / SD cctv systems: http://goo.gl/SPkdYW hd sdi systems: http://goo.gl/uksRAD ip systems: http://goo.gl/UMHBd0 each of the above sub categories then have a further sub category of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 16 camera kit page... I am trying to figure out if it would be better to just have one "cctv systems" page, and use filters in the left menu so users can filter by format, number of cameras etc etc... but these filters would not navigate to other pages but simply limit the view on the one "cctv systems" page. If you think 1 page with filters is best - can you then advise what should i do with all the sub category pages i no longer need? 301 rediret to the main cctv systems page? Basically i currently have my site set up so cctv products are categorised by the format i,e SD, HD-SDI or IP... Which i thought was very important the user doesnt mix formats as it can not work - but am thinking maybe i should catorgorize by type i.e CCTV Camera, CCTV Recorders or CCTV Systems, and then use filters to drill further down in the categories. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated. thanks
On-Page Optimization | | isntworkdull0 -
Which URL Structure is best for New Website?
Hello All, I have one client and he want to develop his website but the he want the URL structure for his website page like below: http://www.example.com/category/xxproduct.html But I have suggest him below URL Structure http://www.example.com/category/xx-product.html So Can you people please suggest me that from above which URL structure is better from SEO side as well as from Visual side..? Is using - is better to separate the words in URL?
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
What's the best way to handle crawling of photo gallery?
When you have a photo gallery with many search filters and loads and loads of pages, is it best to block all the filters and use google's pagination code? Ex: http://photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter This site has pages for many different queries. While the page titles are unique, the pages are showing duplicated content.
On-Page Optimization | | cakelady0 -
Duplicate Content- Best Practise Usage of the canonical url
Canonical urls stop self competition - from duplicate content. So instead of a 2 pages with a rank of 5 out of 10, it is one page with a rank of 7 out of 10.
On-Page Optimization | | WMA
However what disadvantages come from using canonical urls. For example am I excluding some products like green widet, blue widget. I have a customer with 2 e-commerce websites(selling different manufacturers of a type jewellery). Both websites have massive duplicate content issues.
It is a hosted CMS system with very little SEO functionality, no plugins etc. The crawling report- comes back with 1000 of pages that are duplicates. It seems that almost every page on the website has a duplicate partner or more. The problem starts in that they have 2 categorys for each product type, instead of one category for each product type.
A wholesale category and a small pack category. So I have considered using a canonical url or de-optimizing the small pack category as I believe it receives less traffic than the whole category. On the original website I tried de- optimizing one of the pages that gets less traffic. I did this by changing the order of the meta title(keyword at the back, not front- by using small to start of with). I also removed content from the page. This helped a bit. Or I was thinking about just using a canonical url on the page that gets less traffic.
However what are the implications of this? What happens if some one searches for "small packs" of the product- will this no longer be indexed as a page. The next problem I have is the other 1000s of pages that are showing as duplicates. These are all the different products within the categories. The CMS does not have a front office that allows for canonical urls to be inserted. Instead it would have to be done going into the html of the pages. This would take ages. Another issue is that these product pages are not actually duplicate, but I think it is because they have such little content- that the rodger(seo moz crawler, and probably googles one too) cant tell the difference.
Also even if I did use the canonical url - what happened if people searched for the product by attributes(the variations of each product type)- like blue widget, black widget, brown widget. Would these all be excluded from Googles index.
On the one hand I want to get rid of the duplicate content, but I also want to have these pages included in the search. Perhaps I am taking too idealistic approach- trying to optimize a website for too many keywords. Should I just focus on the category keywords, and forget about product variations. Perhaps I look into Google Analytics, to determine the top landing pages, and which ones should be applied with a canonical. Also this website(hosted CMS) seems to have more duplicate content issues than I have seen with other e-commerce sites that I have applied SEO MOZ to On final related question. The first website has 2 landing pages- I think this is a techical issue. For example www.test.com and www.test.com/index. I realise I should use a canonical url on the page that gets less traffic. How do I determine this? (or should I just use the SEO MOZ Page rank tool?)0 -
ECommerce Site Breadcrumbs Best Practice
I'm working on an Ecom website and I was wondering - For breadcrumbs - is there an SEO and/or UEx preference when it comes to taking them back to the homepage? I have the option of going CATEGORY > SUB CATEGORY > SUB CATEGORY or HOME > CATEGORY > SUBCATEGORY > SUBCATEGORY Each example is hyperlinked except for the lowest level. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
How to organize a Knowledge Center for best SEO?
Hi, My Client is facing pushback from her company on separating assets into different pages (webinars, press releases, by-lines, etc) vs lumping them all together in one page. We need to define the SEO benefits of doing this in an organized fashion vs one big lump. Can you help? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | ScratchMM0 -
What is the Best Landing Page setup?
I have seen a few different types of landing pages. I am trying to figure out which style works best from a SEO perspective. 1. The cram everything possible onto the page approach ala nyt.com? 2. The fill your home page with a ton of links approach like cnn.com? 3. The put just a small sample of your content approach like seomoz? I see 4 blog snippets, a "Go To My Campaign" call to action and that's it. 4. Pages like Groupon.com which have 100% focus on a call to action. I also notice many focused pages like Groupon remove the header and footer on their landing page. Does that help the page retain it's PR better?
On-Page Optimization | | KevinPatrick0