geo-location and search spiders

[matthew1471]

If I have a site which sends visitors to index.php/uk or index.php/us depending on geo-location, what will the search engine spiders spider?


How do the spiders know about geo-locations?


I’d prefer to have a single index page, but have some php to change offers depending on location, though I understand this needs geo-ip databases and stuff. Does anyone have an easier way?

 

[sleepylee]

If I have a site which sends visitors to index.php/uk or index.php/us depending on geo-location, what will the search engine spiders spider?

If this is server-side geolocation (I'm not sure if you can do client side at all, but I included that caveat nonetheless) then the content the spider sees will be dependent on where it is deemed to be from - if the spider's IP address suggests it's in the US then it will go to the index.php/us page, if UK then index.php/uk (or whatever).

How do the spiders know about geo-locations?

They don't. They simply spider the content that is served to them - the geolocation bit is done on the server before Mr. Spider sees anything.

I’d prefer to have a single index page, but have some php to change offers depending on location, though I understand this needs geo-ip databases and stuff. Does anyone have an easier way?

I don't know of one. If you want to resolve IP address to location then you're going to need some kind of database or way of 'calculating' the location. You might be able to parse the referrer string and drag out the 'version' of Google that was used to make a search but this is about as useful and reliable as a chocolate teapot.

 

[matthew1471]

hmmm that's pretty much what I thought.

I'll look into the geo-ip stuff.

Databases and the like seemed to be a bit long winded to serve content to different geo-locations.

I'm sure once it's been setup once, it's easy to re-use the code.

Anyway thanks for your help.