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 countries does Google crawl from? Is it only US or do they crawl from Europe and Asia, etc.?
-
Where does Google crawl the web from? Is it in the US only, or do they do it from a European base too? The reason for asking is for GeoIP redirection. For example, if a website is using GeoIP redirection to redirect all US traffic to a .com site and all EU traffic to a .co.uk site, will Google ever see the .co.uk site?
-
Hi Keith,
In my experience Google mainly crawls from the US.
You're quite right, GeoIP redirection can cause major issues with indexation - as if you're redirecting everything from the US to the .com googlebot can't see the .co.uk site.
As such, I'm not a fan. Rather than implementing a hard redirect I prefer Amazon's approach. If you visit the amazon.com site from a UK IP you get a javascript overlay that invites you to visit the .co.uk version of the site instead - they let the user decide which site to view rather than actually redirecting them.
This is a nice solution as it ensures that the search bots can crawl both versions of the site, and rankings aren't endangered.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Keith, I am having the same issue and I agree with you. The fact that Google has data centers in Europe does not necessarily mean the algos are indexing from there. I also want to set Europe and US GeoIP redirection. It would be great to get Mozers opinions on this. Hopefully this post gets freshly reviewed
-
Interesting question - I'd quite like to know what happens here too.
Matt Cutts recently posted a video on cloaking (http://youtu.be/QHtnfOgp65Q) saying that as long as you don't do anything 'special' for Googlebot you're OK, but presumably if you are redirecting IP's based on location and you don't want to prevent Googlebot form accessing your site then effectively you have to do something 'special' for Googlebot (e.g. you're doing one thing for everyone else and a different thing for Googlebot).
-
Hi,
The data center locations is interesting, but it isn't what I was looking for. I need to know whether Google crawls the web from any IP other than US IPs.
To clear up the second question, let me be more specific:
Let's say Google is crawling a .co.uk site from a US IP address. The site is using GEO IP redirection to redirect all US traffic to the .com site. Therefore, when Google attempts to crawl the .co.uk from the US IP address site it will be redirected to the .com site, never seeing the .co.uk site. Can anyone confirm that this is what happens?
-
I found an article from 2008 that shows Google data centre locations: http://bit.ly/mONhf9
Your other question is a bit confusing. Why Google wouldn't see the UK site?
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
-
Using same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags
Hi,I have a question. Is it okay if I use the same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags? For example, for my en-us page: Is this okay with Google? What are your thoughts on this?
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?
UPDATED 4/29/2019 4:33 PM I had made to many copy and pastes. Product pages are corrected Upon researching the hreflang x-default tag, I am getting some muddy results for implementation on an international company site older results say just homepage or the country selector but…. My Question/Direction going forward for the International Site I am working on: I believe I can to put x-default all the pages of every country and point it to the default language page for areas that are not covered with our current sites. Is this correct? From my internet reading, the x-default on every page is not truly necessary for Google but it will be valid implemented. My current site setup example:
International SEO | | gravymatt-se
https://www.bluewidgets.com Redirects to https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as US/Global) Example Countries w/ code Site:- 4 countries/directories US/Global, France, Spain Would the code sample below be correct? https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ (functions as US/Global) US/Global Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ US/Global Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/whizzer-5001/ http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions for France) France Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/fr/fr/ France Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products- https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as Spain) Spain Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/ Spain Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 Thanks for the spot check Gravy0 -
Worldwide and Europe hreflang implementation.
Hi Moz ! We're having quite a discussion here and I'd like to have some inputs. Let me explain the situation and what we plan to do so far. One of our client has two separate markets : World and Europe. Both pages versions will be mostly the same, except for the fact that they will have their own products. So basically, we'd want to show only the European EN version to Europe and the standard EN version to the rest of the world, same goes for FR and ES. As far as IT, DE, CS and SK, they will only be present within the european version. Since we cannot target all Europe with a single hreflang tag, we might have to do it for every single european countries. Regarding this subject, SMX Munich recently had quite an interesting session about this topic with a confirmation coming from John Mueller saying that we can target a single URL more than once with different hreflang tags. You can read more here : http://www.rebelytics.com/multiple-hreflang-tags-one-url/ So having all this in mind, here's the implementation we plan to do : www.example.com/en/ Self canonical www.example.com/fr/ - hreflang = fr www.example.com/es/ - hreflang = es www.example.eu/it/ - hreflang = it www.example.eu/de/ - hreflang = de www.example.eu/cs/ - hreflang = cs www.example.eu/sk/ - hreflang = sk www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = be-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = ch-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = cz-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = de-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = es-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = fr-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = uk-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = gr-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = hr-fr etc… . This will be done for all european countries (FR, EN and ES). www.example.com/en/ - x-default Let me know what you guys think. Thanks!
International SEO | | Netleaf.ca0 -
How can I change the currency Google lists my products with in the SERP?
I.e. This product - http://www.absoluteautomation.ca/fgd400-sensaphone400-p/fgd400.htm - shows up as USD in the SERP. (In the US it just won't show a currency, if Canada it will show USD on the SERP). My pricing is all in CAD, how can I tell Google this? (It knows pricing is CAD in my Google Product Listings/Merchant Center). Thanks!
International SEO | | absoauto0 -
International SEO Subfolders / user journey etc
Hi According to all the resources i can find on Moz and elsewhere re int seo, say in the context of having duplicate versions of US & UK site, its best to have subfolders i.e. domain.com/en-gb/ & domain.com/en-us/ however when it comes to the user journey and promoting web address seems a bit weird to say visit us at: domain.com/en-us/ !? And what happens if someone just enters in domain.com from the US or UK ? My client wants to use an IP sniffer but i've read thats bad practice and should employ above style country/language code instead, but i'm confused about both the user journey and experience in the case of multiple sub folders. Any advice much appreciated ? Cheers Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Google US vs Google UK
I could have posted this somewhere else, but I cannot find it. So, I have keywords that rank well in Google US and many that do well in Google UK too. I thought all of my keywords ranking well in the US would also rank well the UK. I have figured out today that it is not the case. Why would I rank in the top 3 in the US and not even show up in the top 50 in the UK? It is very strange. Thanks for your help! I am not super new to SEO or web business. I have had a very good company that has been ranking well since 2004.
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0 -
IP Redirection vs. cloaking: no clear directives from Google
Hi there, Here is our situation:we need to force an IP Redirection for our US users to www.domain.com and at the same time we have different country-specific subfolders with thei own language such as www.domain.com/fr. Our fear is that by forcing an IP redirection for US IP, we will prevent googlebot (which has an US IP) from crawling our country-specific subfolders. I didn't find any clear directives from Google representatives on that matter. In this video Matt Cutts says it's always better to show Googlebot the same content as your users http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw&noredirect=1, but on the other hand in that other video he says "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don't build different indices, one for each country". This seems a contradiction to me... Thank you for your help !! Matteo
International SEO | | H-FARM0 -
Pop-up to select country. Any negative SEO effect?
Hi there! We have similar websites in different countries (it's an ecommerce site). Some times, those websites share the same language and, for example, people from Mexico end up in a page from our website in Argentina. Therefore they see our products in their language buy in a foreign currency. We would like to show them a pop-up (like a shadowbox) depending on their IP to allow them to go to their local website. There wouldn't be any redirect. Would that affect our rankings in any way? Would Googlebots see that as well? Thanks!
International SEO | | jorgediaz0