Seeking Geo-Block Solution for Web Site, SEO-Friendly & W3TC Compatible

Hello WordPress community,

I introduce myself as a developer, web designer, and e-commerce manager within a company specializing in the sale of hi-fi products, home cinema integration solutions, and televisions. My role encompasses not only the development and design of the company’s website, custom-made for maximum optimization, but also managing all of our online communication, including content writing, SEO, and social media management.

Our WordPress site, which I designed from scratch, meets our expectations: extremely responsive and fast, it provides an optimal user experience. However, a major challenge overshadows this picture: the recurrent theft of our image URLs. Through daily alerts from SEMRush, I face a frustrating reality—our images are regularly used without permission, generating backlinks from sites located in countries that neither bring value to our SEO nor quality prospects. This situation requires me to regularly submit blocking requests to Google, an extremely time-consuming process that diverts me from more strategic tasks.

I am well informed about techniques like hotlinking and know how to protect against them. However, our goal is not to overly restrict the use of our images. Indeed, when our products and services are positively mentioned on specialized sites or hi-fi enthusiast forums, it significantly contributes to our visibility and SEO. Our objective, therefore, is to find a middle ground: how to proactively block access to our site from regions that squander our resources without real contribution, while remaining open to positive contributions from all over Europe and the main search engines.

For this purpose, we use W3 Total Cache to optimize our site’s performance and have a MaxMind license, ready to be utilized for precise geolocation control. However, the complexity lies in identifying a solution or strategy that:

– Ensures perfect compatibility with W3 Total Cache.

– Utilizes our MaxMind license for geolocated access control.

– Offers the necessary flexibility to allow positive exposure without opening the door to content theft.

– Significantly reduces the time spent submitting blocking requests to Google, thus freeing up time for higher-value initiatives.

I am looking for recommendations on plugins, third-party tools, cloud services, or even unique development practices that could address this complex issue. My goal is to intelligently and sustainably protect our content while preserving our site’s excellent responsiveness and respecting our SEO strategy.

Thank you in advance for any help, suggestions, or experiences you could share to guide my search towards an optimal solution.

Thank you,

Laurent

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