Web Overlays - Region Specific Offers - SEO Implemention & Considerations

[ElNino]

Hi all,

I'm currently considering implementing some overlays on a site. They're likely to be time-specific (so running only on certain hours and days), visitors will only see it once and content will also be slightly different based upon the region of the visitor (US, Non-US).

They will be marketing-based messages tailored to the visitor based on where they are visiting from, I was thinking about putting the content of the overlay in an <iframe>and blocking it from being crawled/indexed by bots.<br /><br />Would this approach set-off any alarms with Google in terms of cloaking or any other nasty things? To clarify, they'll be as unobtrusive as possible to the visitor.<br /><br />Based on the above approach, bots will see that an iframe is being called, but with more or less no content - would this be a problem too?<br /><br />Another approach i thought about would be to dynamically serve different images based on the region...<br /><br />Lastly, assuming correct and safe implementation from a technical perspective, as a generality, have people seen better results from capturing exit traffic, timed overlays or when people first land?<br />Any advice appreciated!</p></iframe>

[RyanPurkey]

Google has similar functionality baked into it's Survey tool: http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/website_owners so you could look at how they handle it / recommend setting their own version up and then be pretty confident that you're version (whatever it is--just using a pop up survey as an example) is working within their guidelines. (Here's their example: http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/websat_example)

Different regional images shouldn't be a problem either.

Your experience might vary on the last question. With some sites and exit survey seems to work best while others lend themselves to timed or first landing.  You could split test that though and come up with an answer pretty quickly.  Cheers!