Geo targetting and SEO
-
Hi all!
We are about to launch a new geotargetting feature on our site.Basically, nowadays we have a normal Homepage (example: myHomepage.com). Next week, the homepage will depend on your localization (checked through IP):
For example, for Texans there will be a myHomepage.com/Texas (automatically redirected), for New Yorkers a myHomepage.com/Newyork.
My question is, how can this affect SEO? Where will the bot go?
Hopefully the answer is not "depending on where the bot is hosted"... because this can be dangerous. Also, I don't think that "telling the bot to go to a generic Homepage" is a good idea, as Google dislikes when you show them something different from the human users.
Thanks
-
Thanks David!
I will check that case study. I guess that, right now, it's a matter of checking Google's cache after the new page gets crawled...
Still looking for different POVs everyone!
-
Hi Alejandro,
Yep, it's the answer you don't want to hear...
The search bot will follow the same rules as everyone else, so if you geo-target dependent on location then Google will only see the content aimed at the bot location. And as you said, it's a very risky tactic to direct Google bot under different rules than users.
There was a perfect case study on such issues here on SeoMoz, you might not come up with the same answer as Paul but you need to look at the same considerations:
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/territory-sensitive-international-seo-a-case-study
Good luck!
David
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO Problem With My Pages ?
Hi everyone, I created a self-hosted custom PHP website the page is ( custom cosmetic boxes ), but it doesn't show up on Google. I tried to follow tutorials on the HubSpot, but even my site sucks. Please help me where I am wrong. Maybe the little thing is left unattended, which makes it void.
Web Design | | fbowable
Please help me.0 -
Seo for design webinar ?
I've got no problem using google webfonts on their own, but what about using them over an image; specifically a clickable image? Its easiest to place text over an image if the image is a background image, but then the image isn't easy to make clickable. Am I missing something - this shouldn't be hard, right. Thanks!
Web Design | | saultie0 -
I am looking to improve my on page seo, can you provide any recommendations or suggestions for how?
I am relatively new to the world of SEO and recently built a new site. I have read as many books as I can to help increase my skill set rapidly, and have attempted to implement the best of what I have learned but I know many of you have been in this arena for a while and I would be extremely appreciative of any suggestions you can offer with regard to on page. Thanks in advance. http://luxuryhomehunt.com - home page http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/orlando.html - city level http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/orlando/bay-hill.html - community level
Web Design | | Jdubin0 -
Word Press Seo Errors/ Questions
Hi my name is Tina I am new here I hope you guys can help me out. I thought building my new site with Word Press was going to simplify things, however I have a ton of errors, and I am not sure what they are, or how to fix them. I am hoping someone could share with me a solution for these errors. I have 28 rel=canonical errors, I am not sure what this means, I understand it to mean my pages are similar, and this is to set a heirarchy between my pages. Please correct me if I am wrong. If I am correct would this be necessary to add if my main keyword was "widgets" and my home page was optimized for "widgets" and my next page was "blue widgets" and so on. While my pages are similar they are all optimized for different versions of my main keyword some using long tail keywords. Do you know of a plugin that can help solve this problem? Also does anyone have a plugin they recommend for G+ my G+ authorship verification is causing an error as well? I am using Head Space 2 I have used this seo plugin numerous times with great success it has been my favorite seo plugin. However, we have a portfolio that shows our clients websites, and on those pages Head Space will not let me enter a description tag. What plug in do you guys recommend with more control over each page? Another interesting issue is on one of our pages I optimized it for our Canadian clients, and now every page has been listed in Google.ca for the keywords it should have on Google.com. We are listed on Google maps, verified in Google places, and our address is on the site so they know we're from the USA however, the majority of our keywords are only listed in Google.ca. We're on page one for all of them, we are in the top three on most of them so that's not bad, but we want to be listed in Google.com as well. Any suggestions on this?
Web Design | | TinaGammon1 -
Video SEO?
What is the best way to get SEO benefits from video? Which service is best? YouTube, Vimeo or any other? Or is best just to upload direct to my own site? But then how would I handle mobile devices i.e. iPad and iPhone? How does one go about marketing a video? Thanks
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
I need to buy a website template with seo focus - any tip? what technology is better?
Due to lack of resources, my company usually buys website templates and we adjust it internally. So we can always be with new designs, spending less money. With all this changes of google panda recently, I will change my website again. Usually we buy then from templatemonster, but some templates are far away from seo standards. Do you have tips where to buy than? Should I search for a specific technology or layout? Is this JS Animated website a goog choice?
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
Should I Remove URL extentions for SEO?
We are having a developer design our website with Magento. I noticed the main pages such as About Us have no file extention in the URL. But the product pages have a .html file extention. I was once told to remove the file extentions. Are there benefits to removing the .html file extension and if so, is there a way we can do this using Magento?
Web Design | | hfranz0 -
Wordpress SEO Change of Structure
Hi, I have a Wordpress SEO Question. I ran the SEOMOZ checker on my website and it discovered roughly 70 of my 250 blogs had a URL length problem. I have removed the year and month from the WP structure as I read elsewhere that it is not important. The blogs displayed as follows: domain.com/blog/2011/02/contents-of-the-blog and the new structure is: domain.com/blog/contents-of-the-blog I have resubmitted the new structure to Google Webmaster Tools XML and updating the on-page sitemap on my main site. My blog was cached on 25<sup>th</sup> October and seems to be caching every 7 days, my website cached on the 24th and I wonder if I should do any follow up work to ensure the content gets crawled properly. a) Individually 301 redirect the old URLs to the new. b) Individual Canonical links for each. c) Adding the old pages to the robots file and disallowing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | tdsnet0