VPN Traffic

While Linkly links work with VPN traffic, Linkly cannot reliably support geo-redirection or geolocation for VPN users.

The reason is that VPNs deliberately obfuscate the traffic source.

VPNs work by routing your traffic through a server in another location. This masks the original physical location of the request.

High-quality VPNs use residential internet connections from the target country, so traffic appears organic.

Low-quality VPNs use server datacenters such as AWS or DigitalOcean. This is cheaper, but the traffic doesn't look natural since it comes from a datacenter rather than a home or office connection.

Each internet service provider (ISP) is allocated a range of IP addresses, much like a phone company has a range of phone numbers.

Linkly looks up users' IP addresses in publicly available databases and matches the ISP to its registered country.

• The Country tab on traffic reports may show the VPN server's location, not the user's real location.
• Geo-redirection may redirect users to the wrong destination.
• Users on cheap VPNs that route through datacenters may be flagged as bot traffic and blocked if you have bot blocking enabled.
• ISP lookup will show the VPN provider, not the user's real ISP.

If you expect significant VPN traffic:

• Avoid geo-redirection — Use a single destination or provide users with a manual country selector.
• Don't block bots — Or enable Skip social crawler tracking to allow some automated traffic through.
• Use the Filter Robots button — This helps identify traffic from datacenters in your reports.

• Bot Traffic — Understanding bot traffic and why VPN users may be flagged
• ISP Lookup — How Linkly identifies internet service providers
• Geo-Redirection — Redirecting users based on location
• Cloud Providers — Datacenters used for bot detection