John Mueller of Google answered a question on Reddit about what the effect is, showing different content—depending on who was visiting the site based on their IP address—would have on SEO. He provided insight into how Google crawls and indexes.
The person had a site on which he wanted to show country-specific banners on his page. He was concerned about the effects this might have on their rankings in various countries.
Here’s the query:
“I got one question on how content for different geoip effect for seo?
Some marketers in my company asking me about to place side banner for users of certain geo ip – for example for UK visitors they want to show banner about event that coming in UK), but main geo for website: US.
Does it affect SEO for website overall? How Google classifies that type of placement? Is this kinda sort of cloaking (without purpose to cheat on google systems)?”
John Mueller addressed the query by focusing only on the aspect concerning its impact on SEO, out of the three questions asked by the individual.
Here’s Mueller’s response:
“Google generally crawls from one location – and that’s the content which would be used for search.
To ensure the indexing of a specific element, it must be made visible (or visible globally). The subsequent outcome relies on your actions. Googlebot typically crawls from IP addresses in the United States. If access is geographically restricted by IP, it will switch to an IP from another country.
Regarding the classification of the “placement” — presumably referring to content in the sidebar — this query remained unanswered.
Here’s what was asked:
“How Google classifies that type of placement?”
Assuming the inquiry pertains to how Google categorizes sidebar content, the answer lies in Google’s recognition of the primary content of a webpage, largely disregarding non-primary content for ranking purposes.
In a presentation with Martin Splitt of Google, he explained that it’s able to determine the different parts of a web page. Splitt explained how Google manages to distinguish the main content from the navigation and other normal sections in order to variably score those sections.
Then, according to Splitt, Google determines the main substance of what the page is saying and summarizes it into what he described as the “Centerpiece Annotation”, basically identifying what the topic is.
In this context, the sidebar banner would likely be regarded by Google as non-primary content, and hence not taken into ranking consideration.
Is Altering Content Based on IP Address Considered Cloaking?
Cloaking typically involves a spam tactic where Googlebot is identified by its IP address, and content specifically tailored for Google is presented, while different content is displayed to other users. In essence, cloaking entails presenting distinct content exclusively for Google and all other users. However, this does not align with the scenario outlined by the Redditor.
Given that Googlebot primarily crawls from IP addresses in the United States, content swapped out for visitors from other countries generally won’t be crawled and indexed. Google will only index the content intended for the United States audience. Therefore, swapping out content based on the country of origin of the site visitor doesn’t constitute cloaking for spam purposes either.
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