Blocking some countries and redirecting that traffic

[melbog]

Hi there,

I have a video site, which is on CDN and is really expensive to run. So I want to block most of the countries and only keep HQ ones.

I wonder if there's a difference if I just block them and show blank page, or if I show them a page with text and let's say a link to a different site or if I just simply redirect to some other site.

Do you think I can still get good ranking on google on countries that I don't block?

[Oren.]

It should be fine.  Here's an article about it an the important quote: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017603.html

"As long as the web server always blocks IPs from (say) Africa, it's not doing anything special/different for Googlebot, and so it wouldn't be considered cloaking, but geolocation instead."

[AlanMosley]

You sound like you have an expensive cdn.

Try Microsoft Azure they are cheap will cost you pennies for cdn, or use YouTube free.

[melbog]

Hmm a 5 years old post. A lot have changed since then.

And still not sure what would be the best way to do it.

Completely block, show some page saying they can't access or what would be the best?