Using the Referer to customize marketing text

is this useful? has it worked for you?

[webdevsf]

It is a common recommendation amongst search engine marketers to use the referer query from google to target your sales pitch.

I am hesitant to do it - first, it is difficult to do well. Although it seems "cool" to the webmaster to tell the visitor what they searched for to get to this page - to a visitor, well, it can just seem dumb.

ie, google query appears in referer q=blue+widgets+in+tanzania:

Then you make your page say "looking for 'blue widgets in tanzania'?" Click here!

if you could figure out what the user wanted, specifically, from that query, well, that would be cool. But usually, when i see this, it feels mildly creepy - like I'm being tracked and I don't want to be.

What is your opinion? Has this technique worked for you?

[suidas]

At what point does that slide into cloaking? What if you swapped in and out whole paragraphs based upon the term? Would you worry less if you did that with JavaScript or server-side?

[nuevojefe]

You're right about the tracky feeling. It's all about finding a way to word it that works for most situations well.

[rich42]

I get something around a 15% increase in conversion when I'm able to match the text in one of my main links to the keyword they searched on.

The way I do it is fairly hand tuned - so it only shows when it makes sense.

Widgets -> Buy Widgets
Blue Widgets -> Buy Blue Widgets
Broken Widgets -> Buy Widgets