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Kane,

Thanks for the response.  I agree that few will type that in but I wonder if the user's location matters--That is: since Google knows where people are located why wouldn't Google try to match up their location with the webpage content?.  For restaurants, it appears to matter to Google--when I put in a national restaurant like Bob Evans one of the results is all-menus.com/state/myneabylocaltown.    Why not for a retail store like a Kohls that also has a physical location?  .OTOH a coupon site isn't a store with a local presence--it's just a site that can exist anywhere.  Still, logically it seems to me that if my content is geared toward a physical location (ie the coupon is good locally), then Google would/should check for whether a user search has a potential location-connection, and prioritize that in the results---like it appears to do with the allmenus.com site.

This issue has caused me a lot of grief lately as I want to have the location breakdown but fear it won't be rewarded, yet logically IMO it should be.  Kane if you or anyone else has further insight please do share.

Thanks Miriam.  Sorry for the delayed response--been pretty tied up.

I have a dynamic website which will have location-based internal pages that will have a <title>and <h1> title, and meta description tag that will include the subregion of a city.  Each page also will have an 'info' section describing the generic product/service offered which will also include the name of the subregion.  The 'specific product/service content will be dynamic but in some cases will be almost identical--ie subregion A may sometimes have the same specific content result as subregion B.  Will the difference of just the location put in each of the above tags be enough for me to avoid a Duplicate Content concern?</p></title>

Hi David,

Sorry for such a delayed response but I keep wondering about your point on the meganav.  Its known that Google is able to figure out menus and wont count those toward duplicate content?  I just would like to be sure since my menus are fairly substantial when dropdowns are included.

Great!  I just sent you an email.

Thanks Marc. Sorry for the slow response--I came down with a bug last night..

Here is the basis for my comments that I am thinking that link juice is about Page Rank and not some much with  the resulting Search Rank, as well as that Page Rank may actually not be a big deal anymore with overall Search Rank--and so my concern about dilution is overblown.  Regardless of the truth on the matter, I appreciate your advice about content and relevancy:

http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-we-dropped-the-100-links-per-page-guideline-but-we-may-take-action-if-it-is-too-spammy-178197

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5535/Why-Google-Page-Rank-is-Now-Irrelevant.aspx

Thanks again, Ted

Thanks.  Not knowing this well, are you for hire to check out some competitors if I give you some names?  I can't afford to mess this up (over 5000 hours of programming into this).  I know I should learn more but I'm spread thin..

You are giving me SOME hope for a site I've been working on for about 5 years and am getting ready to launch.  Thanks very much.

EGOL, Thanks very much.  I, being a one person biz, am very interested in the idea of ranking by popularity, as my goal is to have the best site out there but I have limited funds to promote it.  Your comment in #4 about time on page and bookmarking is something I think should be taken into account by Google for search page ranking, but I've never heard before that they do. After all, usage and return usage is what it is all about!   Are those significant factors used by Google?  If so maybe there is hope..:)

HI Marc,

Yeah I may not be explaining my understanding correctly, or I may not understand correctly.  What I have read is that the issue of link juice is only connected to page rank and not search rank.  So, if I have no backlinks to my subpages, then I don't lose any home page juice.  So why even have subpages if no backlinks?  Because of the search rank.  Queries can still lead people to my subpages.  In fact I've read that page rank is hardly even a factor in search rank anymore, which implies that no one should even be concerned about link juice dilution at all!  I'd like to believe it because I potentially will have plenty of pages with unique content and would like to build backlinks to at least some of them besides the home page..

Does it sound like I've misunderstood this issue?

Thank you.  8000 pages per city won't hurt me?  That's perhaps my biggest concern..My structure right now has all those pages, but I want to make sure that's the best way to go..alternatively I could probably reduce the number to 1000 or so by combining subcategories in to 'grouped' subcategories (ie all plumber, carpenter, contractors go under 'home-repairs').  Is 1000 better than 8000?

It seems there are 2 opposing views, and as a newbie this is very confusing.

One view is that as long as your site pages have relevant content and are easy for the user, Google will rank you fairly.

The other view is that Google has 'rules' you must follow and even if the site is relevant and user-friendly if you don't play by the rules your site may never rank well.

Which is closer to the truth?  No one wants to have a great website that won't rank because Google wasn't sophisticated enough to see that they weren't being unfair.

Here's an example to illustrate one related concern I have:

I've read that Google doesn't like duplicated content.  But, here are 2 cases in which is it more 'relevant' and 'usable' to the user to have duplicate content:

Say a website helps you find restaurants in a city.  Restaurants may be listed by city region, and by type of restaurant.  The home page may have links to 30 city regions.  It may also have links for 20 types of restaurants.  The user has a choice.   Say the user chooses a region.  The resulting new page may still be relevant and usable by listing ALL 30 regions because the user may want to choose a different region.  Altenatively say the user chooses a restaurant type for the whole city.  The resulting page may still be relevant and usable by giving the user the ability to choose another type OR another city region.  IOW there may be a 'mega-menu' at the top of the page which duplicates on every page in the site, but is very helpful.  Instead of requiring the user to go back to the home page to click a new region or a new type the user can do it on any page.  That's duplicate content in the form of a mega menu, but is very relevant and usable.  YET, my sense is that Google MAY penalize the site even though arguably it is the most relevant and usable approach for someone that may or may not have a specific region or restaurant type in mind..

Thoughts?

Thanks Jane,

This is, it seems, complicated, so I appreciate your taking the time to check into it.

Very good advice regarding avoiding duplication.  Yet, in the Olive Garden example location IS important, so if I decide to go that route I need to be sure there is content unique to the location (maybe nearby offers, for example..)

If there are 40 regions in a city, and 200 subcategories that's 8000 indexed pages potentially without even listing businesses, so even a simple structure like you mention could yield a huge number of internal pages.  I question the value of trying to build backlinks to 8000 pages and worry about losing 'juice' from the home page if I do so..(I've read that page rank is a very low search ranking factor anymore, so maybe I need not worry about the juice issue at all--your thoughts?).

Hi Marc,

Thank you..I've heard this but here is why I find this issue so perplexing:  First, I have read that the link juice is ONLY associated with inbound links, so if in both scenarios above all inbound links are to the home page only, then there is no decrease in link juice if I have 20 internal pages, YET I get the benefit of having 20 more pages indexed that might show up in a user query.  I guess I'm trying to confirm that my understanding is correct before I have the programmer (me) set up 20 internal pages...I don't want to any more lose link juice from the home page than I have to.

Yesterday the SEO guy I'm thinking of hiring wrote this:

"If you only have the home page indexed, you will never rank.  If you only have incoming links to the home page, you will never rank."    I don't really understand this..it is in the context of a coupon site that offers coupons for all regions in all cities and of course they will be categorized by some 30 categories and 200 subcategories...

Any further input..really do appreciate it..

Hi Marc,

Thanks.  My target will be people in every major city.  However, I can set it up to have one page for Kohls, or a page for each city for Kohls.  I am wondering if Google ALWAYS takes the user's location into account, which is obvious with restaurants, but not with national stores.  If they don't and they rely ONLY on the keywords, then I understand that if the user enters "Houston" it would help to have a Houston/Kohls page, but my guess is that very few users actually include their own city when searching for a national store..dunno..nor do I know how to find out..

Thanks for the caution on duplicate content.  I would have a title and some content in a hover 'info' box that would tie it to the city. Hopefully that would be enough.

Thanks again--please provide any more thoughts.  I've put 5 years into developing a site for mobile coupons --local and national--and now that I'm about to launch I've come to realize that it HAS to succeed organically for me to succeed, and so 'structure' of pages is something I'm really concerned about.

Google will use the user's location for a restaurant search but it doesn't look to me like it uses it for a national company like Kohls.  Is there a way to determine that?

Assume I have no physical local presence in Houston for answering the question.

Assume also that the coupon I list is a national one that applies everywhere.  It seems to me that a facebook post that uses the first one as a link is better because more people live outside of Houston than inside and will see it as relevant, AND I may list it for more than one city.  But, for specificity perhaps it makes sense to have the second one as it may be more likely to show up in a Google search result by someone in Houston..

Your thoughts please?

Thanks.

Say I have a coupon site in a major city and assume there are 20 main locations regions (suburb cities) in that city.

Assume that all external links to my site will be to only the home page.  www.site.com    Assume also that my website business has no physical location.

Which scenario is better?

1. One home page that serves up dynamic results based on the user cookie location, but mentions all 20 locations in the content.  Google indexes 1 page only, and all external links are to it.

2. One home page that redirects to the user region (one of 20 pages), and therefore will have 20 pages--one for each region that is optimized for that region.  Google indexes 20 pages and there will be internal links to the other 19 pages, BUT all external links are still only to the main home page.

Thanks.

Not sure where this belongs..

I am developing a coupons site for listing local coupons and national coupons (think Valpak+RetailMeNot), eventually in all major cities, and am VERY concerned about how many internal pages to let google 'follow' for indexing, as it can exceed 10,000 per city.

Is there a way to determine what the optimal approach is for internal paging/indexing  BEFORE I actually launch the site (it is about ready except for this darned url question, which seems critical) Ie can I put in searchwords for google to determine which ones are most worthy to have their own indexed page?  I'm a newbie sort of, so please put answer in simple terms. I'm one person and have limited funds and need to find the cheapest way to get the best organic results for each city that I cover.

Is there a generic answer?  One SEO firm told me the more variety the better.  Another told me that simple is better, and use content on the simple pages to get variety.  So confused I decided to consult the experts here!

Here's the site concept:

**FOR EACH CITY: **

User inputs location: Main city only(ie Houston), or 1 of 40 city regions(suburb, etc..), or zip code, or zip-street combo, OR allow gps lookup.    A miles range is defaulted or chosen by the user.

After search area is determined, user chooses 1 of 6 types of coupons searches:

1. Online shopping with national coupon codes, choice of 16 categories (electronics, health, clothes, etc) and 100 subcategories (computers, skin care products, mens shirts)  These are national offers for chains like Kohls, which do not use the users location at all.

2. Local shopping in-store coupons, choice of same 16 categories and 100 subcategories that are used for online shopping in #1 (mom & pop shoe store or local chain offer).  The results will be within the users chosen location and range.

3. Local restaurant coupons, about 60 subcategories (pizza, fast food, sandwiches).  The results are again within the users chosen location and range.

4. Local services coupons, 8 categories (auto repair, activities,etc..) and around 200 subcategories (brakes, miniature golf, etc..).  Results within users chosen location and range.

5. Local groceries.  This is one page for the main city with coupons.com grocery coupons, and listing the main grocery stores in the city.  This page does not break down by sub regions, or zip, etc..

6. Local weekly ad circulars.  This is one page for the main city that displays about 50 main national stores that are located in that main city.

So, the best way to handle the urls indexed for the dynamic searches by locations, type of coupon, categories/subcats, and business pages

The combinations of potential urls to index are nearly unlimited:

Does the user's location matter when he searches for one thing (restaurants), but not for another (Kohls)?  IF so, how do I know this?  SHould I tailor indexed urls to that knowledge?  Is there an advantage to having a url for NATIONAL cos that ties to each main city: shopping/Kohls vs shopping/Kohls/Houston  or even shopping/Kohls/Houston-suburb?

Again, I"m talking about 'follow' links for indexing.  I realize I can have google index just a few main categories and subcats and not the others, or a few city regions but not all of them, etc.. while actually having internal pages for all of them..

Is it better to have 10,000 urls for say  coupon-type/city-region/subcategory  or just one for the main city: main-city/all coupons?, or something in between?  You get the gist.  I don't know how to begin to figure out the answers to these kinds of questions and yet they seem critical to the design of the site.

The competition: sites like Valpak, MoneyMailer, localsaver seem to favor the 'more is better' approach, with coupons/zipcode/category  or coupons/bizname/zipcode   But a site like 8coupons.com appears to have no indexing for categories or subcategories at all!  They have city-subregion/coupons and they have individual businesses  bizname/city-subregion  but as far as I see no city/category or city-subregion/category.  And a very popular coupons site in my city only has maincity/coupons maincity/a few categories and maincity/bizname/coupons.

Sorry this is so long, but it seems very complicated to me and I wanted to make the issue as clear as possible.  Thanks, couponguy