I have a question concerning regional targeting of a website. I have 2 websites with exactly the same content and both in English (exact copy), but different domains:
abc.example
xwz.example
I would like to redirect visitors from Europe to abc.example
and the rest of the visiters to xwz.example
.
My approach is to do so by IP detection. Showing a pop up to the user and informing them that they are being redirected to a suitable version for x y reasons.
But the real problem is: What should be the perfect approach to letting the search engines (Google) know that these are 2 versions of the same website and avoid penalties for duplicate content or other penalties?
The rel="alternate" hreflang=""
solution would be the best solution if it was on a coutry level, but we want to target whole European countries on one site and the rest of the world on the otherside.
Should we use a canonical
tag? How can we tell Google that this version is for Europeans and this other version is for the rest of the world?