I am going to move a website to a different URL. I want to have the website functional for a certain set of users. So the plan is to put 301 redirects in place for certain countries and especially the google bot, but serve the original website to a set of IP addresses or just one country. Would this be considered as cloaking? In short, we would like to move our website without a certain user group knowing, but at the same time, do 301 redirects for the bots. I will of course notify google in webmaster tools, but I still think you need all the correct 301 redirects.
no, that will not be cloaking., not sure 301 redirect will be better idea or using something like geo ip would be a better choice. you can target specific geo and if the visitor comes from other IP range, they will be redirected to a different page. different people do that for different reason but most common use of such method is for sites running CPA offers that are usually valid for a specific country. if you are considering 301 redirect, not sure how you can setup that as a specific country will have a range of ip addresses, not just one or 2 blocks. geo ip is the best solution in my opinion however, if you want to move your main website to a new domain, then 301 redirect will be the best choice.
Please correct me if I am wrong. This is what I understand from your posted. 1. You do want to remain the homepage to the certain user groups. You do not want them to aware about the redirect and the existing of new site. 2. You would also wanted to redirect some inner pages to the new site in the same time altogether. This purpose is for Googlebots and users separated from the group you mentioned. If so, I think 301 redirect won't help you much. As sultanofseo said, you need a custom redirect based on IP / Geolocation. You can also custom redirect for specific type of visitors such as Googlebots, Yahoo Slurp too.