What is the best way to execute a geo redirect?

[jcgoodrich]

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:

1. 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?

2. 302 passes no juice, so probably don't want to do that.

3. 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?

[FedeEinhorn]

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.

[jcgoodrich]

Thanks Federico. Any insight as to why Yelp, who is very seo savvy, uses a 303?

[FedeEinhorn]

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.