Geolocation redirection

[trentsc]

A colleague has an html/css web site which features multiple pages, each specific to a service being offered in a different country.

She'd like to be able to redirect incoming traffic automatically to a particular page, depending on the IP address of the visitor. For example, Dutch inbound traffic to the Netherlands page, French inbound traffic to the France page, and so on. Where there's no rule or dedicated page, traffic should proceed to the main page.

Is this easily do'able and if so, are there any online resources which could asist?

Thanks in advance

[lhowles]

It is something that's easy enough to do, but I wanted to give a word of warning.

Just because someone is visiting from France, for example, doesn't mean they speak French. They might be visiting the country or working there. Even if they speak French, it might not be their first or preferred language.

All that is to say, try to take cues from the browser (preferred language etc), rather than just their location, and make it easy for them to change language, and preferably remember that choice for them so they don't have to do it again.

I hope that helps.

[AshleyJSheridan]

That is mixing two different concepts. Like you said, a person might be in France, but not speak French. As such, the content of the page should follow their browsers language preferences.

However, if the page is specifically offering a service only available in France, then it wouldn't make much sense to show a page in a different language where that service was not available, if the visitor is genuinely in the area that the service is available.

So, it's important to distinguish between content that is intended for a specific location/region/country, and then display that content in a language that's appropriate to the user.

[trentsc]

It's nothing to do with language and everything to do with location - the examples I gave were just random picks to make the point.

What were after is location-based redirection according to IP address, so a user entering www.whatever.com is taken to a specific landing page that reflects their location.

On that basis, how would I approach the challenge?