Are there SEO implications to blocking foreign IP addresses?
-
We are dealing with a foreign company that has completely ripped off our entire site template, design and branding. This is such an inconvenience and we've had similar things happen enough in the past that we're considering blocking large ranges of IP addresses from accessing our site, via htaccess.
Is this something that will potentially cause problems with search engine bots crawling or indexing our site? We are in the US and our site is hosted in the US, but I'm not sure if the major search engines could potentially be using foreign based bots.
Looking for any insight on this or if there are any other potential SEO problems to consider.
Thanks
-
Zee, did you implement this? Outcomes?
-
If the bot is in another country and you have blocked the range it's pretty obvious... What kind of "backup" are you looking for?
If you are asking me if I have a geographical list of bots for each search engine then no, I don't. But this might be of some use to you http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/TbpNyFiJvjs
Good luck with the whole site design / copyright issue, any chance you could PM me a link I would like to see what they have done... (just curious).
-
Thanks for the reply SEOKeith, but focusing "on making our site more authoritative" does not solve the problem.
The problem we have is not an SEO problem, it's a design, copyright, trademark and ethical problem. When you spend months developing and designing a site only to have it ripped off, it's not something we want to just ignore.
The damage has been done in this particular instance. However, we've had enough problems in the past from foreign visitors and our business doesn't come from foreign countries. Because of that, blocking actual humans from accessing our site from countries we've had problems with is a potential solution.
The solution we're considering could potentially impact the way search engines view our site and that's the question. Do you have anything to back up your comment about "blocking large ranges of IP addresses you could end up restricting access to legitimate...bots"?
-
By blocking large ranges of IP address you could end up restricting access to legitimate users, bots etc.
For a start how do you even know what site is harvesting your data is in the said country, sure they might be hosting there but the boxes that are ripping your content might be in the US they could then have some web heads in some other random countries serving up the content.
People copying / stealing / cloning your content is pretty common it happens to a lot of my sites - it's just the way it is your not going to be able to stop it you might as well just focus on making your site more authoritative.
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
-
What will the SEO and conversion implications of an ecommere website not moving to https be?
Client has an ecommerce website on Adobe Business Catalyst and they are currently not able to move websites onto https. They have announced this won't be available until late June. What are the expected implications of this in terms of site visibility and conversions etc?
Technical SEO | | Kerry_Jones0 -
One-Pager and SEO
We're building a page that is going to feature over 31 people as difference makers in their field. We're unveiling one a day for an entire month. The very early mockup of the page has name, pic, some bio info, and a link to open up a new window with the full bio. I would love to have all of the bio content for all of the people on the page (and indexable), but I'm not sure how to do that while still being able to hide the full bios until they are expanded. Anybody have any tips that are SEO-friendly and/or examples of a page that is built like this and ranks well. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | spackle0 -
IP redirect possible SEO issues?
Hi I help manage a small eCommerce business that sells worldwide. We currently have 4 stores www.tidy-books.com (US site) www.tidy-books.co.uk (UK) www.tidy-books.eu (EU) www.tidy-bboks.com.au (AU) We have auto redirect based on the country of your IP. The .com is the route address though. Currently I have decided to focus all my energies with link building etc on .com as it seems to carry the most weight and being a very small team we don't have the resources for separate campaigns for all websites at the moment. Whilst I've done on site SEO with country in mind i.e for US kids instead of children. I'm just wondering if you can see any pitfalls in this approach, Ideally I would like to have a team focus on each store separately and have them as separate domains but with the IP redirect we at least rank well in Google for the .com and the customers gets sent to the relevant store. Any thoughts would be great
Technical SEO | | tidybooks0 -
Seo Yoast Plugin
In Yoast seo plugin, under the general settings is Sitewide meta settings,under which there is an option to either check or leave unchecked Noindex subpages of archives which says: If you want to prevent /page/2/ and further of any archive to show up in the search results, enable this. I am very confuse if to check or not. What is the best seo practice? Most of our posts are in categories which have 2-4 pages.
Technical SEO | | VillasDiani0 -
Web server locations for international seo
We have a site that is currently hosted in the far east for the far eastern market. We are having issues with the hosting co. so we are considering bringing the site back onto our servers in the UK. However, we don't obviously want to damage too much the bit of uplift we get from local hosting. What is our best approach? Is it ok just to have the site in the UK even though its aimed at the Far East? Or is the use of a proxy server good? Or should we look for other local hosts? Any help very gratefully received. Iain
Technical SEO | | iain0 -
Do rss feeds help seo?
If we put relevant RSS feeds on a site, will it help the SEO value? Years ago, I shied away from RSS feeds because they slowed the site down and I didn't like relying on them. However, the past couple years, the Internet has become better, especially in Alaska.
Technical SEO | | manintights280 -
Buying new domains to help with SEO
Hi, Does buying new keyword related domains and 301 redirect them to my site have any seo benefit?
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0 -
How to Block Urls with specific components from Googlebot
Hello, I have around 100,000 Error pages showing in Google Webmaster Tools. I want to block specific components like com_fireboard, com_seyret,com_profiler etc. Few examples: http://www.toycollector.com/videos/generatersslinks/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=824&func=view&catid=123&id=16494 http://www.toycollector.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6932:tomica-limited-nissan-skyline-r34--nissan-skyline-gt-r-r34-vspec&catid=231&Itemid=634 I tried blocking using robots.txt. Just used this Disallow: /com_fireboard/
Technical SEO | | TheMartingale
Disallow: /com_seyret/ But its not working. Can anyone suggest me to solve this problem. Many Thanks Shradda0