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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →In one 2026 test of 345 popular websites that responded from every test location, just 29 (8.4%) returned a different HTTP status code or final hostname across eight country-based datacentre vantage points. That is a small share of this sample—not proof that the web is never geoblocked. The result also came from a scripted client whose browser-like identity did not match its underlying network behavior.
What the test found about country-to-country differences
Remdore tested 500 popular domains from datacentres in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Bangalore and Sydney. The client made HTTPS requests with Python’s urllib, sent a Chrome user-agent string, followed redirects, and recorded status codes, final hostnames, DNS answers, timing and cookies. The author reports about 4,500 requests in total, including a later comparison from a Sofia home-broadband connection.
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Only 345 of the 500 domains answered from all eight datacentre locations. The author excluded the other 155 from the main geographic comparison, noting that most appeared in the ranking but did not serve a human-facing page. The figures below therefore describe the 345-domain responsive set, not all 500 domains or the entire web.
| Observed difference across datacentre locations | Domains | Share of 345 responsive domains |
|---|---|---|
| Different HTTP status code | 22 | 6.4% |
| Different final hostname after redirects | 12 | 3.5% |
| Different status code or final hostname | 29 | 8.4% |
The combined count is the most useful measure of different front doors in this probe: 29 domains varied on at least one of the two recorded outcomes. Country-specific editions or hostnames can indicate localization rather than denial. Remdore cited Yahoo, Kaspersky, CNN, Business Insider and USA Today as examples of country-dependent hostnames or editions, not as proof that those sites block access.
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The article’s headline is an interpretation of these observations. The experiment measured a small set of response differences under specific conditions; it did not establish that location never affects access.
Access denial looked different from country-to-country variation
Across the datacentre locations, Remdore reported request-refusal rates close to 27%: 26.7% in New York, 27.5% in London, 27.0% in Bangalore and 26.7% in Sydney. Those refusal rates are not the same thing as geographic blocking: a site refusing the scripted client from many locations may be responding to the client or its network address rather than to country alone.
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The Sofia home-broadband control helps show why the distinction matters. In the author’s comparison of the same domains from home and datacentres, the reported outcomes were:
| Home versus datacentre outcome | Domains | Share of 345 |
|---|---|---|
| Served both the home connection and datacentres | 243 | 70.6% |
| Refused the client everywhere | 71 | 20.6% |
| Served home but refused all datacentres | 14 | 4.1% |
| Refused home but served datacentres | 1 | 0.3% |
The 14 sites that served the Sofia connection but refused every tested datacentre connection point to a difference associated with the request origin or address range in this sample. They do not prove that any particular site had a policy against datacentres, much less a country-based policy. Remdore also noted an unusual Toronto pattern: some sites served Toronto while refusing most other tested locations. That observation is compatible with IP-range reputation affecting results, but it does not identify the cause for any site.
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Where a datacentre response included a body, the author counted 96 HTTP 403 responses, eight 429 responses and eight 406 responses. These are status counts from the probe, not a complete accounting of all refusals or an explanation of why each occurred.
What the measurements say about speed and cookies
Response time varied by vantage point
For complete responses, Remdore reported these median times by datacentre location:
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| Location | Median time to complete response |
|---|---|
| New York | 244 ms |
| Frankfurt | 275 ms |
| London | 286 ms |
| Toronto | 321 ms |
| Singapore | 506 ms |
| Bangalore | 680 ms |
| Sydney | 690 ms |
These are medians from this experiment, not guaranteed page-load times for people in those cities. The test used a scripted HTTPS request and one set of datacentre connections; it does not describe every route, device, browser or time of day.
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First-request cookies were common in the sample
Of the 345 responsive sites, 162 set a cookie on the first request. From New York, the author counted 541 cookies across 345 page requests. The test recorded cookie-setting, but did not assess each cookie’s purpose, how long it lasted, or whether the site’s practices complied with any particular law.
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Why this is not a definitive geoblocking census
The key limitation is that the request’s Chrome user-agent string did not match its Python urllib TLS handshake. Anti-bot systems can detect inconsistencies between a claimed browser and its actual connection behavior. In a follow-up, using Chromium through Playwright still did not distinguish blocking of non-browser clients from blocking of automated browsers, because automation itself can be detected.
Accordingly, the defensible conclusion is about how the tested scripted client was treated from these particular networks. The probe did not isolate geography from IP reputation, datacentre-address filtering or bot detection. Its sample was limited to 500 popular domains, and the central country-to-country comparison narrowed further to the 345 that responded everywhere. These constraints mean its percentages should not be read as universal rates for the web.
How to read the headline
In this experiment, response differences between countries were less common than refusals affecting the scripted client across locations. That supports a narrower and useful point: for this sample and client, where the request came from often mattered less than what kind of request it looked like or which address range it came from. It does not show that geography is irrelevant to all users or websites.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Remdore put the scope this way: “The measurement I can actually stand behind is the narrow one: a fifth of the top 500 will not answer a scripted request, no matter which continent it comes from.” That is the author’s characterization of this test, not a general estimate for all websites.
Source: Remdore, “The web cares much less about where you are than what you are,” DEV Community, published in 2026.
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