Which automatic redirects to use in International SEO

[intelligencebank]

Hi,

I need help with international SEO redirects. I'm going to have intelligencebank.com/au for Australian visitors and intelligencebank.com for the rest of the world. I would like to automatically redirect aus users that land on .com to .com/au and vice versa for non-australian users.

1. Which automatic redirects should I use:

a) java script because it will allow US based google bots to crawl my /au website (bots won't read javascript so they won't be redirected)

b) http redirects

c) 301 redirects

d) 302 redirects

e) anything else?

a) Should I still use rel alternate even though I only use english?

b) if I should add rel alternate,  can I still keep my existing rel canonical tags that are use to avoid duplicate content (I use a lot of utm codes when advertising)

[Lantec]

Google recommend that you "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en

You should have links in your HTML to tell robots which versions to go to:

[intelligencebank]

Hi,

I have specifically stated that I only use English and I don't understand how your answer relates to my question.

Answer to question 1 and 2 will be much appreciated.

[Lantec]

Sorry my mistake.

First i would include: <rel="alternate" hreflang="en-AU" href="http://www.somedomain.com/au"></rel="alternate">

This is a great solution in sending them to the right page: www.benchmarkcorporate.co.uk - You get a popup saying "We see your from the US, would you like to go to the US website?" Whilst also having the option in the header to jump between the sites.

Thanks
Rick

[intelligencebank]

Thanks Rick. I guess I was trying to avoid popups as most people find them annoying.

I ended up coming up with a solution:

• added javascript to redirect for aussie and NZ visitors from .com to .com/au

the reason for js is that most google bots are from usa, So if I was to 301 redirect they would never been able to crawl my /au sub directory. since google bots don't read js then they will ignore these redirects and instead crawl my au directory even though they are from US.I didn't end up using rel alternate because my research showed that they are meant to be used when your language changes. In my case the language is the same.