A client has a successful UK site based powered by WordPress and is launching a US arm. While the US sub-sites are built, he has a holding page that is visible to US visitors, who are redirected to it from the usual home page by the Geo Redirect plugin.
I’ve just realised that Geo Redirect is also redirecting Google’s (and other search engines’) bots, which is not at all good; does anyone have a relatively easy solution that would do what Geo Redirect does so well but would not affect visits by search engine bots?
Search
Help Google to determine the site language and to serve the right page for the users in different countries. Mark up language attributes correctly. Use
<html lang="en_UK">and<html lang="en_US">. Use<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x" />in page<head>. It’s also important to specify site targeting in Google Webmaster Tools.Referrers
I believe people residing in UK will link to your UK-targeted site, not US-targeted. And inversely.
User Experience
It’s always a good practice to leave the user the ability to choose preferred site himself.
Advice
Don’t use any redirection plugins. Google advise sounds the same: