Geo-targeting Content Based On IP address?
-
What are the benefits / disadvantages of geo-targeting content based on IP address. A client is interested in serving up different content on their homepage based on what area the user is coming from. This seems like an SEO nightmare to me as search engine spiders could potentially see different content depending on when they visit. Is there a best practices here? Or is it looked down upon in regards to SEO? Any information would be helpful.
-
Check out this discussion first: http://www.seomoz.org/q/geo-targeting-by-ip-address
There's nothing wrong with dynamic targeting, if it's done right: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-level-demographics <-- That post is about persona-targeting
Be aware that for many sites' geo-targeted content is not on the homepage per se, but a landing page built for that purpose. That doesn't mean it's the only way to go, but that's where you'll find more examples. It's probably best to do some multivariate testing before going all in on it...
If client's doing this to improve user experience, there's nothing wrong with it, but yes it could have unexpected effects on your results in local search.
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
-
Which URL should I choose when combining content?
I am combining content from two similar articles into one. URL 1 has a featured snippet and better URL structure, but only 5,000 page views in the last 6 month, and has 39 keywords ranking in the top 10. URL 2 has worse structure, but over 100k page views in the last 6 months, and 236 keywords in the top 10. Basically, I'm wondering if I keep the one with the better URL structure or the one with more traffic. The deleted URL will be redirected to whichever I keep.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | curtis-yakketyyak0 -
Is it a good strategy to link older content that was timely at one point to newer content that we would prefer to guide traffic and value to
Hi All, I've been working for a website/publisher that produces good content and has been around for a long time but has recently been burdened by a high level of repetitious production, and a high volume in general with pages that don't gather as much traffic as desired. One such fear of mine is that every piece published doesn't have any links pointing to when it is published outside of the homepage or syndicated referrals. They do however have a lot (perhaps too many) outbound internal links away from it. Would it be a good practice, especially for new content that has a longer shelf life, to go back to older content and place links pointing to the new one? I would hope this would boost traffic via internal recircultion and Page Authority, with the added benefits of anchor text boosts.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajranzato91 -
IP address guideline for 2 sites on same server linking each other.
Hi Guys! I have two websites which link to each other but are on the same server. Both the sites have a great PR and link juice. I want to know what steps shall I take in order to make google feel that both the sites are not owned by me. Like shall i get different IP and different servers for both or something more? Looking forward for you thoughts and help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha0 -
Content Landing Page
Hey Mozzers, I wanted to get some opinions on here. I'm going to be building out the content on my site a lot of the next couple of months, and have recently started thinking about creating a content landing page. For those not familiar with the concept it's the idea of building this page that basically just pulls together all the content you've written on a specific subject & serves as hopefully a link magnet & destination for people interested in the topic. So my question is this, I am just outlining all of the different posts & areas that I want to cover on specific topics & it is a lot. I'm talking ~20 posts on each subject. Do you think that would be too much content to try & get on one page? Should I break it down to a more finite 5-7 links to high quality articles per page, or create basically this monster guide that links to all these different articles I'll create. Looking forward to getting your opinion, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chris.kent0 -
Duplicate content question? thanks
Hi, Im my time as an SEO I have never come across the following two scenarios, I am an advocate of using unique content, therefore always suggest and in cases demand that all content is written or re-written. This is the scenarios I am facing right now. For Example we have www.abc.com (has over 200 original recipes) and then we have www.xyz.com with the recipes but they are translated into another language as they are targeting different audiences, will Google penalize for duplicate content? The other issue is that the client got the recipes from www.abc.com (that have been translated) and use them in www.xyz.com aswell, both sites owned by the same company so its not pleagurism they have legal rights but I am not sure how Google will see it and if it will penalize the sites. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_81 -
Diagnosing duplicate content issues
We recently made some updates to our site, one of which involved launching a bunch of new pages. Shortly afterwards we saw a significant drop in organic traffic. Some of the new pages list similar content as previously existed on our site, but in different orders. So our question is, what's the best way to diagnose whether this was the cause of our ranking drop? My current thought is to block the new directories via robots.txt for a couple days and see if traffic improves. Is this a good approach? Any other suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jamesti0 -
Changing Business Addresses
Anyone have a good local search "best practices" resource for advising a client who is changing business addresses (aside from cross your fingers). For example, order of updating local citations (website first, google places, others). Time frame for update to take effect? Other issues folks have faced in updating addresses? I regularly follow David Mihm, Mike Blumenthal, & Andrew Shotland, I was just curious what the Moz community might be able to add. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gyi0 -
Geo-Targeting Content
I'm to get some ideas on restructuring existing content for geo-targeting. Example: Botox Page Tis is a hypothetical situation -- laser cosmetics clinic in Atlanta trying to rank for Atlanta Botox. The existing content is general information about botox procedures. The problem is editing the content to add Atlanta to the H1 tag and page copy. I'm wondering if there are some techniques to make the edits flow better? My idea is to add a geo-page for each procedure, but I'm wondering if this might interrupt or confuse users in the navigation funnel. Your thoughts? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 190west0