How are your "Service Area" pages handling Penguin/Panda?

[BedeFahey]

We just got a new client because of recent Penguin/Panda changes.

A national "SEO"  firm decided it was a good idea to set up a page for each service town or county they serve with nothing but duplicate content. Needless to say, on the week of the 23rd, their rankings tanked from 1st page (it's not a competitive niche) to 4th.

I'm not bringing this up to brag, but rather because it got me thinking...

How are your geographically targeted "service area" pages doing? Have the recent changes caused you to rethink your geographic targeting in any way?

[Matt-Williamson]

On one of the websites that I work on I have pages for geographic area that I am targeting for the same thing, these pages are all ranked on the first page for their location related search. I think the key is to have well written unique content for each of the pages with content that is specifically relevant to that area. Just because you are targeting the same thing in a different area doesn't mean you can't have pages that are unique yet cleverly target the same service in a different area. In these circumstances I always find it useful to use examples and testimonials for each area if appropriate. Bring input from locals that you work with to give the page a local feel. The recent changes with Penguin/Panda have not had a negative impact on my sites and I am not planning on changing my tactics, because at the end of the day Google is looking for better quality search results so when I produce a page I try to make sure it truly does serve a purpose for a visitor and isn't just spam.