Question Bounces and Access Control List

[Tomdhu]

Have learned that a high bounce rate can be detrimental and Analytics suggest that the source of the bounces on our site originate in the USA.

This is because our web site name, whilst entirely innocent in the UK, does have certain unsavoury connotations in the USA. Hence when someone across the pond happens on our web site they bounce out immediately because it's not what they are looking for.

We are entirely UK orientated and have no desire to have USA visitors to our web site. One suggestions has been to put all countries, apart from the UK, on a deny Access Control List.

Are there any unforeseen consequences to doing this such as would it block Google or Google Analytics or anything that might impact on our SEO ranking?

 

[Community]

I personally do not see anything wrong with blocking access to regions which would have no interest in the subject/site. We actively block some countries from many of our servers, not for Analytics reasons but more for security, for example the biggest offenders in attacks to some sites are the likes of China, Russia, Vietnam. On sites which we know 100% that they are not our target market we simply block them at server level.

Whether this has any unforeseen consequences in regards to SEO and how Google see's those properties, I'm not entirely sure but we've not suffered because of it.

That said, we are not blocking the USA, another English speaking nation so I wouldn't like to say categorically that there wouldn't be any consequence without seeing the data to prove it.

How is your site constructed ? Do you specifically target the the UK with correct lang attributes ? I.e lang="en-GB" ? I would make sure your targetting is 100% UK versed before making any access control decisions.

 

[Tomdhu]

Thanks. I have language as English (GB) set in ThemeFusion settings.
I sell 99% of my items to the Uk and the rest to Western Europe