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Not every online store wants to operate internationally.
Is there a way to tell Google (or any other SE) to list the store only in AU and not other countries?
Apart from (only) selling nationally, we are using GeoIP from MaxMind to block certain (high-risk fraud) countries from accessing our pages.
Reading on WebmasterWorld we want to do the right thing with our site, and thought it would be better to "instruct" via directive only to be included or shown in x y z countries.
E.g. a meta tag could be used to allow:
1. continent inclusion exlusion
cNA, cSA, cEU, cAU, cAS, cAF, cWo
c for continent to distinguish from country codes
cWo for world, could be the default (if ommitted)
that would make it compatible with current non-existance of such a tag
(cNA = NorthAmerica, cSA etc)
country inc/excl
e.g. meta ShowListing US,AU,... etc.
or in case you want to be in all but x: cWo,-AU
= World but not in AU
Is there any interest group or W3C trying to do this?
Is the currently a way to achieve this in other ways? ... in particular in ways not stepping on toes (meaning obeying any rules that may exist).
Thanks for any feedback.
Cheers,
Max
Best bet is to simply set up a location menu and arrange with similar companies abroad to do reciprocal links.
You want to serve Germany? buy .DE
You want Australia? .Au
Your site will the rank higher in country specific part of the majorse's everythiong else equal of course..
by going ccTLD you rank lower in the catchall serps .thus keeping most unwanted traffic at bay
Eric, I never thougth about the reciprocal links. Good idea.
DAuction, as for the individual domains: makes sense.
iProgram, your approach would have an effect on Google, because its IP is originating from the US, the header would show: don't cache.
The approach we have taken is rather radical: we redirect all but AU, and US to a "Sorry" page (we only operate in Australia).
The main reason being is to keep fraudulent orders off our back.
We take similar stance on protocols other than HTTP, e.g. TCP/IP to block whole country ranges that are spam sources. It is highly effective :)
The reason for leaving the US open is solely for Google to spider the pages.
Maybe we block the US as well, and let Goggle through?!
Would the latter violate any rules?
Could one argue it is cloaking, because we let Google in but no others?
Google spiders its contents, despite having an .au domain from the US.
Maybe I am too cautious about this?
Cheers,
Max
The only way we found working was to make sure Google knows you are from the country you target (au-domain or IP in AU) and make the site not relevant enough to be in the top 10 for international clients but for the regional clients.
If somebody from Australia is using Google and your site is known to Google to be from Australia it will perform better in Australia than if you used Google in the US or elsewhere. You can use that behaviour of Google.
And a caveat, this does not necessarily hold true with Yahoo!
