Geo targeting: redirect visitors by country
Send one short link to different destinations based on the visitor's country, continent, or device. Localize stores, route to the right app store, and catch everyone else with a default — no code required.
What is a geo-targeting link?
A geo-targeting link is one short URL that reads the visitor's location the moment they click and routes them to the destination you mapped to that location — US visitors to your US store, EU visitors to your EU store, everyone else to a default. The routing logic lives in the link, so you share a single URL across ads, email, social, and QR codes instead of juggling a different link per region.
It's not geofencing (which triggers actions inside a drawn map boundary) and it's not geo-targeted advertising (which buys ad placements by location). It's link-level redirection: one link, many destinations, chosen by where each visitor is.
How geolocation redirects work
Location is detected at the edge from the visitor's IP — no GPS, no permission prompt, no login.
- 1
Add your destinations
Set a URL for each country or continent you want to target — US visitors to your US store, EU visitors to your EU store, and so on.
- 2
Set a default fallback
Choose where everyone else goes. Unmatched countries, unknown IPs, and crawlers all land here, so the link never dead-ends.
- 3
Share one link
Use the same short link everywhere — ads, email, bio, QR codes. The routing lives in the link, not in your campaigns.
- 4
The edge detects location
When someone clicks, our edge network reads their country from their IP in milliseconds and picks the matching destination.
- 5
Track clicks by country
See exactly how each country and rule performs in your analytics — one link, clean per-location numbers.
Target by continent, country, device — or all three
Rules combine, and the most specific match wins: a country rule beats a continent rule for that visitor.
Continent
Route by whole regions — Europe, Asia, North America — when country-by-country rules are more than you need.
Country
The most reliable tier: ~99% accurate at the country level. Map any country to its own destination.
Device
Combine with location — iOS to the App Store, Android to Google Play, desktop to your web store.
Region & city
Target states, provinces, or cities via the API for campaigns that need finer granularity.
What you can do with geo targeting
Localized stores & pricing
Send shoppers to the store in their language and currency — a proven lift, since 76% of buyers prefer to purchase in their native language.
App distribution
One link that opens the App Store on iPhone, Google Play on Android, and the correct regional storefront by country.
International ad campaigns
Run a single creative with one link; each country lands on its own localized page instead of a generic global one.
Affiliate localization
Route clickers to their local Amazon or merchant store so you capture the right regional commission.
Language routing
Send visitors to the right language version of your site based on where they are.
Compliance & geo-restriction
Route or gate traffic by country where a product, offer, or service is restricted.
How accurate is it?
IP geolocation is highly reliable at the country level — MaxMind reports around 99.8% accuracy — because internet registries assign IP blocks to ISPs that operate within a single country. Accuracy drops as you get more specific: roughly 55–80% at the region/state level and 20–75% for cities, and VPNs or proxies resolve to their exit-node location rather than the visitor's true one.
The practical rule: target by country or continent for anything tied to money, language, or compliance, and treat region and city as best-effort. Whatever the case, your default destination catches anyone who can't be placed — so no visitor is ever stuck.
Does geo redirection affect SEO?
Not when it's done right. Cloaking means showing search crawlers different content than real users. Geo redirection is safe as long as you treat Googlebot like any visitor — it follows your default destination (Googlebot mostly crawls from US IPs) and you never try to hide the geo behavior from it. Pair geo links with hreflang tags and country domains for localized pages, and keep robots rules consistent across locales.
Geo targeting FAQ
What is a geo-targeting link?+
One short link that detects each visitor's location from their IP at click time and sends them to the destination you set for their country, continent, or device — with a default for everyone else.
How does the link know where a visitor is?+
It reads the visitor's public IP address and matches it to an IP-geolocation database at the edge (like Cloudflare's country code). No app install, GPS permission, or login is required.
How accurate is IP geolocation?+
Country-level detection is around 95–99% accurate (MaxMind reports 99.8%). Region/state is roughly 55–80% and city 20–75%, so route money- and compliance-critical traffic by country or continent and treat city as best-effort.
What happens if a visitor's country has no rule?+
They go to your default destination. The link never errors or dead-ends — unmatched countries, unknown IPs, and crawlers all fall through to the default you set.
Can I target by continent and device too, not just country?+
Yes. U2L supports continent, country, and device (iOS/Android/desktop) in the dashboard, and region/city via the API. Rules combine — for example, US + mobile to the App Store, US + desktop to your web store.
Does geo redirection hurt my SEO or count as cloaking?+
No, when done correctly. It's only cloaking if you show crawlers different content than users. Googlebot follows your default destination; pair geo links with hreflang and country domains, and don't hide the redirect from crawlers.
What about visitors on a VPN or proxy?+
They're routed by the VPN's exit-node location, not their true location — an inherent limit of all IP geolocation. Your default destination safely catches anyone mislocated.
How is this different from geofencing or geo-targeted ads?+
Geofencing triggers actions inside a drawn map boundary, and geo-targeted ads buy placements by location. A geo-targeting link simply routes one URL's clicks to different destinations by location.
Do geo rules work for QR codes?+
Yes. A QR code encodes the short link, so the same country, continent, and device rules apply on scan — send every scanner of a poster to their local page automatically.
How fast is the redirect?+
The lookup happens at the edge and adds only milliseconds, so visitors never perceive a delay. Links without geo rules redirect instantly as usual.
Send every visitor to the right place
Create a geo-targeting link and route your traffic by country, continent, and device — from one URL.