PHP redirect to country specific page & SEO

[chandrika]

I am wondering what effect using a PHP script to redirect users to a country specific page depending on their IP address, would have on SEO, because I have read that redirects can cause penalties.

I am simply redirecting visitors from the root of a site to a country specific subdirectory on the same domain, and wondering what effect this will have on the SEO aspect.

What will bots do, does google for example have bots with diff IP addresses for each country, so will the bots also get redirected to their country specific page? So googlebot.co.uk would spider the uk site, googlebot.com would spider the us site? Or what I am worried about is that as the linked to page would just be a php redirect script, would all spiders only spider the php script page and not spider where it was redirecting it too necessarily?

Any info on what will happen would be appreciate..

[vinay11111]

Even search engines do so like google direct me to google.co.in page. SO I think there is no need to worry about such a redirect.

[incrediblehelp]

What is the main reason for that?

[Webnauts]

Are you talking about a multi-language web site?

[nettalk]

I've always found Googlebot IPs originating in the US. Anyway, there should not be a problem if the redirect is genuine and aimed at showing specific and relevant information for visitors from a certain country.

I would setup a 301 redirect though. That goes down best with the search engines.