GEO TARGETING AND SEO searchengineoptimization

GEO TARGETING AND SEO

Providing geographic metadata in Web sites and syndicated feeds can provide users with the ability to search easily for services and articles based on location and proximity.

Geolocation by IP address enables statcounter applications and Web sites to determine users' locations automatically in order to provide specific location-based services to users and members of an on-line community. Such data also helps in combating internet fraud and ip is one of many details recorded by our payment processors 2checkout and Paypal. Recording ip also helps Newswriter target expired domain traffic campaigns according to the clients customer audience. In this article, we present various methods by which Web sites can provide their geographic locations to static pages and syndicated feeds, in the form of meta information or geotags. Put another way, geolocation by IP address is the technique a Web site uses to determine where users are located; geotagging is the technique users employ to find out where a Web site is located. In addition we will look at the SEO value of such services including the results of our recent study into ICBM.

Geotags typically locate the Web site's principle location on the Earth. This information can contain a number of elements. Some geotagging contains latitude and longitude information enabling a webmaster to pinpoint an exact location. Additional tags can name cities, regions and country stats for general locations. Web services, applications and users then can query this information to obtain directions (how to get from here to there), locality (what's near there) or context (where was this article written). Geotags differ from a simple address in that they usually are encoded in metadata and are not visible as part of the Web page. In the case of Newswriter our geo targeting is hardcoded on the server and not visible. By following a standard, other services easily and reliably can find these geotags. Various semantic Web projects still are solidifying geospatial tagging standards, but several techniques already have become common and supported. This article presents these current techniques.

Why Geotag?

Providing a geographic location is beneficial particularly for retail and service businesses, tourist attractions and entertainment venues. If you want to locate a local veterinary center or a hotel near a particular landmark this can be achieved through geotagging. Geographic link directories, such as A2B and Multimap, can index these services by location and allow users to search geographically as well as by service type. Currently, many of these services limit users in their selection of available services. But, it would be possible to allow for more complex queries, such as searching for "Thai restaurants within 2 miles of Central London". Or, when using automatic geolocation, one could ask for "directions from my current location to the nearest theater".

Current location-based services rely on the Web site administrator registering with an on-line index and specifying its location. Some of these services charge a fee, and many are not used commonly, nor are they cross-referenced. Google runs Google Maps a free engine that allows users to search for location-based services using complex queries such as the examples above. Google Maps is an excellent example of how providing geographic information on a Web site greatly can enhance its visibility and usefulness to potential customers and users.

Geographic metadata also is useful for bloggers and photographers. Traveling writers, travel writers and reviewers can give context to their articles by supplying specific geographic information about where they are writing from or where the business they are reviewing is located. Are you travelling to Thailand?. A geo targeted Thailand article can put content infront of those that are looking for it.

By embedding a geographic location in the metadata of the Web site, applications and Web-based services quickly and reliably can determine the site's location relative to search criteria. Using metadata prevents the confusion of an automated search bot having to determine the location from the site's text. Geotagging has been around for some time. Yet only a minority of people know of its use and fewer still utilise the benefits of geourls. The rest of this article discusses the techniques used for embedding geographic information in your Web site or syndicated feed.

Geotagging a Web Site

For a Web site, several means of geotagging are available. In this article I will focus on meta tags for geo targeting. Below is a copy of the meta tags used on a domain of our parent company:

Blogger Not Allowed some HTML Tags So treat <@ as < :)

<@meta name="ICBM" content="40.746980, -73.980547">
<@meta name="DC.title" content="Watch Live Football">
<@META NAME="geo.position" content="40.746990, -73.980537">
<@META NAME="geo.placename" CONTENT="New York">
<@META NAME="geo.region" CONTENT="USA">

The problem with ICBM is its original acronym is Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The meaning for ICBM in turns of Geo Targeting is:

The form used to register a site with the Usenet mapping project, back before the day of pervasive Internet, included a blank for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy. This was actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of Usenet links on a plotter; however, it became traditional to refer to this as one's 'ICBM address' or 'missile address', and some people include it in their sig block with that name. (A real missile address would include target elevation.)

ICBM tags are limited to latitude and longitude and do not include other regional information, such as city or country. The syntax is as follows:

<@meta name='ICBM' content="latitude, longitude" />

This tag would be included in your Web page's section.

Another means of embedding geographic metadata is through geo-structure tags. These geo-structure tags can include latitude and longitude information as well as regional information and an extra placename. The placename could contain the specific address of the person or business. Or, it could be useful for providing a location that may not have a specific point but covering a broader region, such as a city or district. The following example is for the Museo Nacional Del Prado, in Madrid, Spain

<@META NAME="geo.position" content="40.746990, -73.980537">
<@META NAME="geo.placename" CONTENT="New York">
<@META NAME="geo.region" CONTENT="USA">

Geotagging an RSS Feed

Besides geotagging a Web site, it is possible to geotag the source of an RSS feed as well as the individual articles. By geotagging each article, your feed can provide entries from various locations and reach a varied audience. Then, these entries can be displayed on a map where users can read about locations that interest them. Alternatively, by geotagging the source of the feed, a directory or opml file could provide feeds based on user-selected locations.

An example tag looks something like this. Notice the addition of altitude:

<@rdf:RDF>
<@geo:Point>
<@geo:lat>55.701<@/geo:lat>
<@geo:long>12.552<@/geo:long>
<@geo:alt>52.4<@/geo:alt>
<@/geo:Point>
<@/rdf:RDF>

The ICBM standard discussed above also can be used in tagging an RSS feed. An XML namespace is used to specify the keywords of the file, and the tags are included either in the header or within the item tags. Here is an example below:

<@rss version="2.0" >
<@item>
<@title>M 3.7, Southern Alaska<@/title>
<@description>October 02, 2006 03:55:52 GMT<@/description>
<@link>http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/ak00043775.htm<@/link>
<@icbm:latitude>60.4780<@/icbm:latitude>
<@icbm:longitude>-152.4355<@/icbm:longitude>
<@dc:subject>3<@/dc:subject>
<@dc:subject>pasthour<@/dc:subject>
<@/item>

Finally, some Weblog services may prevent users from adding new tags to RSS feeds. In this case, it is acceptable for some sites and packages to embed the geographic information in tags, as shown below:

<@rss version="2.0" >
<@item>
<@title>M 3.7, Southern Alaska<@/title>
<@description>October 02, 2006 03:55:52 GMT<@/description>
<@link>http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/ak00043775.htm<@/link>
<@icbm:latitude>60.4780<@/icbm:latitude>
<@icbm:longitude>-152.4355<@/icbm:longitude>
<@dc:subject>3<@/dc:subject>
<@dc:subject>pasthour<@/dc:subject>
<@/item>

Several Weblog packages already incorporate the ability to specify a geographic location within an entry as well as for the entire Weblog. This geographic information then can be included for users when reading the Weblog through their browsers or through their own aggregators. Each entry, when posted, is assigned either a default location or is given a new location.

What to Do with Geotags

Now that your Web site has been geotagged, what can you do to share this information with users and have new users find your site? A2B is the new incarnation of geourl.com. A2B allows Web site administrators to register their sites. From there, users can search for sites based on location or geographic locality to another Web site. It may be interesting to find out what other sites and places can be found in your area.

A2B also provides a free public API that allows application and Web site developers to query the A2B database of locations. The A2B query does not return the actual location of the Web sites, however, merely their distances and directions (compass headings) from the queried location.
To find out the latitude and longitude or city and region of a Web site, the user can view the Web site's meta information. To illustrate this, we have written an extension to the Firefox browser that alerts users that geotags are available for the Web site currently being viewed. The extension also retrieves that information without the user having to look at the Web site's markup source.

Geourl can be used in a similar way although it can be difficult to use its small map to pinpoint and generate meta tags for your site.

Other applications of geotags include creating a Web page of closely related Web sites, similar to a Web ring, and display their locations on a map of the Earth or a specific region. A restaurant review Web page, for example, could display a map of their reviewing regions, and users could click on locations to read reviews of the restaurants located there. Furthermore, travelers could pull up Weblogs and travel information for the area they will be visiting. Hopefully, larger services similar to Google Local or Multimap will be developed that automatically will collect and use this information to provide users with a large database of services.

Future of Geotags

Geotags currently are not employed widely, and only a small number of services support their use. Geotags have been around for some time and still very few people are aware of them. However, many could benefit from better geographic knowledge of Web sites and on-line data. Applications could provide a central location to assist users in finding out about their locations or intended travel locations

ECommerce is growing exponentially with every company worth its salt jumping on the bandwagon. Imagine if your online purchases were chosen by location rather than serps. In a previous article we discussed the importance search engines pay to content on domains and rank them accordingly. Due to the world of duplicate content this created we are looking at what could be next in the world of SEO. Could geotags be the next decider. Instead of ranking by age, importance, content or backlinks will the internet as we know it become more homely with surfers looking for sites in their immediate vicinity.

Whatever the future holds for geotagging; can you afford to ignore it as a webmaster?.

GeoTagging and SEO

We have been aware of the use of geotagging for quite some time. However, recently we heard claim from one of our business associates regarding its use as an SEO tool.

Our informer claimed that through using Geotagging and placing a site within the vicinity of a good cluster of established domains; that any new domain could be indexed and obtain a pr of 3 after one update. This pr update was based on no other link building work – only the use of geotagging. When I first heard of this idea I laughed it off. Geotagging has been around for a while and while it has its bonuses Grand Master Google isn’t going to pay that much attention. It wasn’t until the idea was explained to me properly that I sat up and paid attention.

Google bases part of its algorithm on backlinks to a site. Google also looks for sites similar or associated with a site. In the past this area would contain sites of the same category or authority sites in any given industry. With geotagging you are putting your site in the same area or association as a whole host of domains. In some geographic locations such as New York mentioned earlier there are around 200 geotagged domains per mile. By tagging a domain in the same region you are basically saying that your site is geographically associated with others in the area. Based on this argument it was put to us that using geotargeting in any significant cluster would increase the pr and serps for any new domain. Being 1 of the largest internet marketing companies in the world; we had to put this to the test.

Take 3 domains. All purchased this year for subsidiary sites but put on hold for the time being

http://www.adultbulktraffic.com/
http://www.bulkcasinotraffic.com/
http://www.buytrafficwholesale.com/

Add to each site a basic text page containing content related to the domain. If these sites are going to get anywhere they need some content. We added geotagging to 2 of the new sites; sticking them smack bang in the middle of a huge cluster of established good pr sites in London, England. The third domain was left – 0 backlinks no geotargeting. We allowed the test to run for one google pr update to see the results and claims of this technique.

3 months later and I actually forgot about the test sites. I only remembered them this week whilst editing another site and stumbling across geotagging. 3 months on and I wish I could say here is a secret SEO method which will get you a pr of 3 on any new domain with 5 minutes work. However, the truth lies with my original scepticism. None of the 3 test domains are indexed in the search engines and all remain pr0. For the geotagged domains some links have been found from geourl to their location but in the search engine world these have been deemed to carry no importance.

As regards, to SEO geotagging is not going to have any significant effect on your domain. Infact it is more than likely to have no effect at all. For internet marketing if your site bases its product, customer base or prestige on a location and you are registered with the correct directories to utilise geotagging then it can be a new weapon in your internet marketing arsenal. For me I guess I better start getting around to develop those 3 domains into new subsidiary sites of Newswriter. Then again; just by placing their url in this article on our pr6 site they will likely be indexed. You win some, you lose some. Still trying to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Source: http://www.newswriter.us/ShowAdminArticle-13.htm