Google and IP-Blocks

Does my site get in trouble when blocking IPs?

[Mito99]

Hi,
I would like to block whole user groups so that certain countries cannot get on my site. This should all be server based rather than placing java scripts on all my sites. Iīm still not sure what the best method would be though since Iīm scared of ruining all the Google rankings I had to work hard for. I guess there is browser language filtering, IP range block a.s.o. but what is the most Google friendly option?
any help would be appreciated!

[Mito99]

no idea? anyone? pleeease :-/

[bakedjake]

As long as you're not blocking the Googlebot user agent or the Google IPs then you should be fine however you'd like to do it.

[AthlonInside]

Why would you like to block an entire country or region?

[walkman]

"Why would you like to block an entire country or region? "

here are a few reasons:
if only sell to US or Canada
if all orders from a country are fraudulent
if a bunch of script kiddies are trying to hack you and they're from a country that might give you a legitimate visitor a year.

I'm sure they're more reasons...

[irishaff]

my only competition comes from another neighbouring country. He is not very web savvy ( proxies what are those ).. emails me every so often (smugly) to tell me that my website is broken ..email him back to say i dont really understand websites..

Situation suits me , as they are now bedind the curve in service offerings and dont really know my spin to sell against me.

Never had a problem with google. I do keep my ear to the ground to see if google starts to visit from hubs in other countries though.

[Mito99]

thanks guys,

Actually thatīs my big concern irishaff. As far as I understand I can block letīs say German users by simply looking at the default language of the browser and redirect those visitors to a different place. now my questions would be:

1. Is there something like a .de Google bot that could be affected aswell?
2. and if so, would that have an effect on my Google.com rankings?
3. wouldnīt this technique of redirecting users from .de be seen as cloaking?

[Marval]

I would say it would be called Geo-Targetting , not cloaking, and such is something all of the SEs are shooting to do themselves

[irishaff]

I have to see it as the same geo targetting not cloaking. The line is ( hypothetically ) a little fudged. Somebody who works in the .de market may be able to tell you but as far as i know all crawling activities come from the US.

I dont use browser language but IP geo targetting to root out the unwanted visitors.