NGINX GeoIP Redirect and Search Engine Bots

Posted on June 10, 2020

I have managed to get NGINX GEOIP by Country to redirect, the following is what I have done:

nginx.conf

http {

        ##
        # Add GeoIP to NGINX
        ##
        geoip_city /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat;
        geoip_country /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat;
...
}

in my host file I placed the following

map $geoip_city_country_code $closest_server {
    default example.com;
    NZ      nz.example.com;
    CA      ca.example.com;
    US      us.example.com;
    GB      gb.example.com;
}

server {
...
server_name example.com nz.example.com ca.example.com us.example.com gb.example.com;
...
if ($closest_server != $host) {
    rewrite ^ $scheme://$closest_server$request_uri break;
}

What I need it to do is to redirect to the closest server but also allow the user to select another international subdomain and not redirect.

Secondly, I need to exclude search engine bots to be excluded from these rules.

Any assistance would be great.

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SamirT

April 20, 2021

@bris4171 did you solve this? I have the same issue, how to allow the user to select another international subdomain and not redirect.

SamirT

April 22, 2021

@bris4171 I found a solution, how to allow the user to select another international subdomain and not redirect - with http referer.

map $http_cf_ipcountry $regional_server {
    default            "en.example.org";
    "US"               "example.org";
}


   if ($regional_server != $host) {
      set $lang A;
   }

   if ($http_referer !~* "example.") {
      set $lang "${lang}B";
   }

   if ($lang = AB) {
      rewrite ^ $scheme://$regional_server$request_uri break;
   }

$http_cf_ipcountry - I use cloudflare geoip solution

Now users can change subdomain