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Great point! Thank you.

The only other safeguard I can think of doing is to tell Googlebot, via Webmaster Tools, to not crawl any URLs with URL parameter added.

Great, thanks.

I should add that what we are doing is solely for the benefit of their PPC campaign. We aren't interested in any improvement in SEO, but what we are trying to make sure we do is that there is no potential for negative impact on SEO.

To that extent we are thinking of adding a NOINDEX to those customised pages that are created using the URL parameter - just to make sure they are kept out of the index and can't be construed as any SEO spam.

Thoughts?

Yep, those are all good points!

Intergise - sounds like you are on the right track, so best of luck and keep us posted.

For me I would prioritise the quality of the copy. Its the copy that will build trust, create a great user experience and persuade users, and so actually SELL the product.

The on-page grader with MOZ is great but don't be obsessed by it. Measure what you do in terms of sales, not whether you get a B or an A+ on the grader.

Finally, you can see how intelligent Google is getting at understanding and processing synonyms and meaning in different contexts. As good as the MOZ grader is, I don't believe it can operate at that same level. The good news about Google's intelligence is that it can free you from slavishly forcing keywords into your copy.

Hope that helps!

Crazy Egg are good, and their free trials are good too.

If you have Google Tag Manager or can code its a doddle to set up.

Hello,

We are currently setting up a way of customising a client's site based on PPC campaign. I am wondering whether or not there are any SEO issues we need to be aware of.

Overview

Our client’s site, as accessed by a user through Google Organic, will be the complete site; the same site Googlebot will see.

The site, as accessed by a user through a particular Google Adwords campaign, will return a customised version of the site.

How the Customisation is Happening

The Adwords campaign will be set up to target a particular region, using Adwords’ built-in location targeting.

Its ads will link to pages on the regular site, but each URL will be appended with a URL parameter that will trigger the customisation. A cookie will also be planted in these users’ browsers to ensure that the customisation continues as the user browses from page to page on the site.

The majority of the content will be the same but the site will promote a particular store of the client, one local to the searcher. Other stores won’t be promoted on this customised version of the site.

SEO Thoughts

All pages will have canonical tags on them referencing the original, unmodified version of the page.

I personally can’t see any issue with regard to SEO because we are approaching this in the spirit of helping the user. But with launch on the horizon I am starting to worry slightly and would welcome the feedback from anyone else here – are there any SEO issues that may arise from this?

Thanks again, Peter.

That's great, thanks Keri.

Hi Keri,

Thanks for getting back to me (thanks to Peter above, also).

So what is the best way of me finding where these 404 pages are linked from?

I am 99% sure they are internal links that I will ask the client to remove, but would like to avoid manually checking every link on the site if possible.

Hi Peter,

I searched for their domain name and about the expected number of results came up.

I searched for these individual URLs that Moz is reporting using the site: command, and they were not returned.

They are also neither in the site's sitemap (HTML page or XML file).

So how is SEOmoz Crawler finding them?

For me I would prioritise the quality of the copy. Its the copy that will build trust, create a great user experience and persuade users, and so actually SELL the product.

The on-page grader with MOZ is great but don't be obsessed by it. Measure what you do in terms of sales, not whether you get a B or an A+ on the grader.

Finally, you can see how intelligent Google is getting at understanding and processing synonyms and meaning in different contexts. As good as the MOZ grader is, I don't believe it can operate at that same level. The good news about Google's intelligence is that it can free you from slavishly forcing keywords into your copy.

Hope that helps!