Current advice or best practice for personalization by geolocation?
-
What is the current advice for displaying content based on a user's geolocation? On the one hand, I know the rule of thumb is that you are not supposed to treat googlebot any different than any other user to your site and shouldn't show different content than what you would show a regular user, however on the other hand, if we personalize the content based on the geography, it means that the content that is indexed would be specific to Mt. View, CA in Google's index, correct? I know I heard years ago that the best practice was to use javascript to personalize the content client side, and block the js with robots.txt so that google indexes a default page and not a geo-specific page. Any insights or advice appreciated.
-
I am not that good with Javascript so I can't really comment on that part. I do understand that there can be many legitimate reasons to show people content that is relevant to users based on their location. I think it can be very useful and actually improve the user experience of the people that visit your site. I think it is worth a try and then just monitor the results. Maybe even do some A/B testing with different content to see which is the most productive and provides the best user experience.
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
-
What is the best way to get found for different areas within my County.
my business is based in the UK in the county of East Sussex. It is not a large County and its neighbour is West Sussex. In terms of local search optimisation I would like to be found when people search for East Susses, West Sussex and Sussex. What is the best way to attack this? e.g. I could use the keywords, "my business is based in East Sussex, but we work across West Sussex too. But would this cover me if someone searched "business in Sussex" . I need some guidance as to the best way to handle this kind of local search conundrum. Thank you
Local Website Optimization | | Web_Prosper_SEO1 -
What is the best way to display local landing pages in the site nav?
My client has multiple local landing pages and it looks a bit spammy opening up the top nav of e.g."Plumbers" to a long list of "plumbers Melbourne", "plumbers Knoxfield", "plumbers Wantirna" etc etc What is the best way of incorporating local landing pages into the site's overall architecture? Thank you.
Local Website Optimization | | Crystal.w0 -
IYO, What is the Best Language to Build a Site With and Why? Thanks Catherine Corn
IYO, What is the Best Language to Build a Site With and Why? Thanks Catherine Corn
Local Website Optimization | | CatherineCorn10 -
Using geolocation for dynamic content - what's the best practice for SEO?
Hello We sell a product globally but I want to use different keywords to describe the product based on location. For this example let’s say in USA the product is a "bathrobe" and in Canada it’s a "housecoat" (same product, just different name). What this means… I want to show "bathrobe" content in USA (lots of global searches) and "housecoat" in Canada (less searches). I know I can show the content using a geolocation plugin (also found a caching plugin which will get around the issue of people seeing cached versions), using JavaScript or html5. I want a solution which enables someone in Canada searching for "bathrobe" to be able to find our site through Google search though too. I want to rank for "bathrobe" in BOTH USA and Canada. I have read articles which say Google can read the dynamic content in JavaScript, as well as the geolocation plugin. However the plugins suggest Google crawls the content based on location too. I don’t know about JavaScript. Another option is having two separate pages (one for “bathrobe” and one for “housecoat”) and using geolocation for the main menu (if they find the other page i.e. bathrobe page through a Canadian search, they will still see it though). This may have an SEO impact splitting the traffic though. Any suggestions or recommendations on what to do?? What do other websites do? I’m a bit stuck. Thank you so much! Laura Ps. I don’t think we have enough traffic to add subdomains or subdirectories.
Local Website Optimization | | LauraFalls0 -
Is this local guide best to follow?
Today I found below guide, Is this best guide to follow for the website and service pages content, layout design? http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/guide-to-local-seo/
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
How best to clean up doorway pages. 301 them or follow no index ?
Hi Mozzers, I have what is classed as doorway pages on my website. These have historically been location specific landing pages for some of our categories but from speaking to a number of different webmasters , then general consensus is that they are not in google guidelines so I will be getting punished by having them. My options are : I can 301 the pages back to their original category pages . This will conserve some link juice to pass back to the respective category page. I can set these as Follow No index. Not sure what will happen here with regards to link value etc. What would be best ?... Some of the pages do currently rank "fairly well" for some of the locations so I am getting traffic from them but I also know I will be getting a algorithmic penalty for having them so how best I clean these up ?. Also , by cleaning up the site structure , would I see any benefit here ? or will I have to wait for a new panda update/ refresh ? I thought the panda refresh won't use a new dataset thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Expert Advice Needed: Single Domain vs Multiple Domain for 2 Different Countries?
Hi MOZers, We are looking for some advice on whether to have a single TLD(.com) or 2 separate domains (.ca) & (.com) Our website will have different products & pricing for each of US users(.com) and Canada users(.ca). Since, we are targeting different countries & user groups with each domain - we are not concerned about "duplicate content". So, does it make more sense to have a single domain for compounding our content marketing efforts? Or, Will it be more beneficial to have seperate domains for the geo-targeting benefits on Google.CA & Google.COM? Looking forward to some great suggestions.
Local Website Optimization | | ScorePromotions0 -
Best marketing for a language learning site
Hello everybody, I'm a programmer so I'm not very good at marketing. Any idea what the best way is to promote my language learning site? (http://www.antosch-and-lin.com/) Since Google Penguin the site has taken a big hit and the changes suggested by a SEO expert hasn't helped. Thanks for any suggestions!
Local Website Optimization | | delpino0