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First a little intro for my problem...
I am making a script that loads a different site based on what country the visitor is from. The script uses the GeoIP db (a geographical list of ip's - open source is at www.maxmind.com).
It would load one of two sites; a .com(default) if the user is non-Canadian, and a .ca if the user is Canadian. The reason for this is a difference in price structure.
Ok my question is two-fold. Firstly, is this considered cloaking by Google? I have read so many different responses to this that I am left more confused then when I started out ;-) As far as I know (which isn't very far) Google is using this same system, and their definition of cloaking only deals with using spider ip's, and using ip delivery is OK if it is beneficial to the user. This is obviously beneficial to the user as it would show (most of the time) the correct price for products.
Now for my subject line question. What is the best (safest) way of doing the delivery? I do not want to hurt my standings at all.
Thanks a lot, and happy posting!
Example - the Google cache. Will you show Google the Canadian or US prices? If you show one or the other, will customers get the prices different from what you are showing on your site?
Just make sure that your customers don't find out that you have 1 set of rules for some of them - and another set for the other folks. Another thing that could happen - a Canadian surfing in the US...would get the US prices, yes?
And then - if they wait to make their 'purchase decision' and come back to your site later (while back in Canada) they could end up with the other prices...
Aside from that really, just make sure that any changes you make (if any) that are search engine specific, IP / Geography specific, etc, keep serving the search engine spiders a consistent version, that way, competitor's dont' get the idea that you are 'spamming' and go fill in a bunch of worthless reports on your 'unethical' behavior. :)
hope this helps.
