Ip addresses and_geo-targeting

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

Thank you Kristjan Mar Hauksson

kmh@nem.is @optimizeyourweb

Board of Directors SEMPO