I've just read some clarification on this subject:
Danny Sullivan said:
Quote:
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Heard from Google. "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."
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And then Matt Cutts confirmed it:
Quote:
Yup, what Danny said. The downside of doing a lot more talking to webmasters and site owners is that sometimes we'll misspeak, but I'd much rather have that problem and sometimes need to clarify than not be talking to webmasters as much.
Barry, thanks for highlighting this, and JohnMu, thanks for always being willing to answer questions in the Google webmaster discussion group.
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Both of these quotes have been copied from here:
Sphinn - Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against Policies