What is geo IP redirection and why would a store want to use it?

The internet is a global medium, yet customers may find more benefits when shopping locally, or in stores that support their local peculiarities. The most prominent examples of such local features is the language of the store frontend and the currency used to display product prices, products available in the user's country, etc.

Redirection based on the customers’ geographical location can become a big competitive advantage for a store since it helps to improve the browsing experience for visitors. Additionally, geo IP redirect can be beneficial for SEO optimization of the store since Google is locale aware and crawls websites from IP addresses from different countries.

The information on user's location is taken from his or her IP address, and additionally the language setup of his or her browser is used to determine the preferred locale. Using this data, the store redirects customers to the pages that have the most relevance for his or her location.

How does the GeoIP Redirect extension conduct the redirect?

The magento geoIP redirect module allows redirecting to the selected URL based on country, IP address and user's language setup in the browser. Simply specify the redirect IP address in the module's rules to activate the redirection. The module doesn't allow excluding countries from the selection, and all required countries should be added to the rule manually. You can try creating ip address redirect rules with the geoip demo.

The module allows for switching store views - they are not related to the URL. It is possible to change the store view without changing the URL. Choose the desired store view redirection from a drop-down list of available store views. This drop-down list becomes visible only when the option Change Store View is activated. Additionally, the module can automatically change the store's currency on redirection. After activating the control Switch Currency, the drop-down-menu of available currencies will be shown.

The redirect to the required store/currency/url can happen automatically on the basis of the backend rules. Alternatively, the user has an option of manually selecting the desired redirect on the store's frontend. They can separately select the store view and store currency.

Where can a user be redirected when the store uses GeoIP Redirect module?

Our module is designed for redirecting mainly inside a Magento store. The current version of this magento geoip extension allows for redirecting to another website only if this site is the instance of the current Magento installation.

The module allows redirecting and switching store-view/currency for the whole store, not on separate pages.

What are the GeoIP Redirect rules capable of?

The GeoIP Redirect provides a flexible system of redirecting users that is based on the rules. Each rule can be applied for a country, browser locale, or IP address. It can also take into account the store view the user visits.

Every redirection rule can do the following: change store view and redirect to URL, switch currency, restrict access

Each rule has a priority level that helps users avoid rule conflicts in the situation when several rules can be applied simultaneously.

Why might the GeoIP Redirect not work?

When adding new rules, they may not work as expected because of caching tools used in your Magento store, for example, Varnish. To overcome the issue, enable the Ajax Mode so the module can process geo-related data by AJAX and in that way, caching can be prevented.

Why might customers get redirection pop-ups even when they have already selected a preferred redirect during their firs visit?

The answer which the user gives to the redirect pop-up is stored in the current session. The session is a temporary entity, and once the session is destroyed - the extension has no source of information on the preferred redirect of the particular user so it will show a pop-up again.

By default Magento has the session time limit at around 15 minutes. This duration can be configured in the store's backend admin panel according to the requirements. Here is the detailed Magento guide on how to do it on the Magento Commerce User Guide

Is it necessary to buy a licence for a third-party service MaxMind, which is used by GeoIP Redirect?

The GeoIP Redirect extension uses an external database of IP addresses and their geographical locations from the third-party service MaxMind. Our module uses maxmind-db Reader to read the database, and it uses the current MaxMind DB. MaxMind has different types of databases: a free and a paid one. You can use the GeoIP Redirect module after installation without additional payment.

Since our module uses maxmind-db Reader to read the database, you may select the most suitable database according to your requirements - our module should work with it.