ip addresses and_geo-targeting
DESCRIPTION
International Search Summit in London , Oct-2010TRANSCRIPT
IP Addresses and Geo-Targeting
International Search Summit London
How far do you
want to go?
So
Your Target Audience?
• A Country – The right ccTLD or language
• Region – Add to it IP filtering
• City – Add to it IP filtering
• Zip/Postal Code – Now it gets complex ...
• Organization • A Person
Country
• Studies have shown that searchers use from around 15% minimum to close to 35% targeted country results only
– This has changed with Google Instant
• The dominant player Google is more and more pushing people to their local ccTLD version of Google
• What you get in Iceland is not the same as you get in the UK
Question the data!
The Algorithm of Search
• Google does not give out their algorithm so easily but Yahoo calls it “Concept of Region”
• „Concept of Region“ is what influences local search strength
– The ccTLD
– The IP address
– The Language
– The build-up of external links
But that is not all
• With the rise of smartphones the exact location is starting to play a major role – There the IP addresses plays a role and so does the ccTLD
• Currency is an indicator ($, £, €, ¥ etc…)
• Some products and service offerings have geographic components
• But the main influencers seem the information, review sites, Google maps and Google‘s Business address services – This is very dependent on country but likely to change fast
as Google roles out their WikiMaps services
United Kingdom
Spain
.. What person is your
target audience
So
How exact do you want to go?
• Using IP filtering methods / technologies you can be pretty exact how you control you visits
• USA the only country that gives out ZIP codes based on IP addresses
• Most other countries only look at the area such as city
• UK ISP’s often lease IP addresses from France
Accuracy level of app. 96%?
• Local regions
– Sometimes cities
– Sometimes countries
– Sometimes counties
– Sometimes states
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
• We could get our own IP address
• IPv6 is taking over from IPv4
– Supports 2128 (about 3.4×1038) addresses
• Penetration was still less than one percent of Internet-enabled hosts in any country 2008
Take aways
• Don‘t test what is happening in Germany with a computer in the UK
• Look at the ratio of you target market links
• Look at your TLD‘s, if you are using a .TV ending then your first point of origion is the Island of Tuvalu – Use Webmaster tools to help you understand how Google
understands you ,then help Google understand you
• Google ignores GEO Meta tags – Bing still ok with them
– http://geotool.flagfox.net
Geo Targeting = Cloaking?
“Geo-targeting by itself is not cloaking under Google's
guidelines. Because what you are doing is taking an IP
address and if your audience is from Canada you will
show him a particular page, if the IP address is from
Germany then you will show a particular page…”
”… just don’t treat Googlebot differently”
Matt Cutts - Google
