Should I use 301 for in-site redirects?

Question

We would like to redirect to a localized version of our entry webpage if IP is detected to be from a certain country. We are using ASP.Net, GeoLite Country Db (it's a very small, 1Mb downloadable DB at time of writing this question).

So, most users would get english content, but if they come from a local place, they would have local content served by default. Of course, they would be able to change the preferred language at any time.

The question is: if www.example.com by default displays default.aspx, should we (if we detect the IP to be "local"):

1. Use "301 Moved Permanently" and redirect it to, say, www.example.com/local.aspx, or

2. Simply render the appropriate content inside default.aspx?

We would like to know if there are some side effects with SEO or similar issues with any of the approaches?

Answer 1

This may not be the best solution.

From wikipedia it says to use 300 for different languages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec10.3.1

The HTTP standard defines several status codes for redirection:

* 300 multiple choices (e.g. offer different languages)
* 301 moved permanently
* 302 found (originally temporary redirect, but now commonly used to specify redirection for unspecified reason)
* 303 see other (e.g. for results of cgi-scripts)
* 307 temporary redirect

Answer 2

I would just deliver the localized contents of local.aspx and send an appropriate Content-Location referring to local.aspx along with it.

Or, if you want a redirect, use the status code 307 to indicate a temporary redirect.