Homepage "personalisation" - different content for different users

[unirmk]

Hi Mozians,

My firm is looking to present different content to different users depending on whether they are new, return visitors, return customers etc...

I am concerned how this would work in practice as far as Google is concrened- how would react to the fact that the bot would see different content to some users. It has the slight whiff of cloacking about it to me, but I also get that in this case it would be a UX thing that would genuinely be of benefit to users, and clearly wouldn't be intended to manipulate search rankings at all.

Is there a way of acheiving this "personalisation" in such a way that Google understands thay you are doint it? I am thinking about some kind of markup that "declares" the different versions of the page. Basically I want to be as transparent about it as possible so as to avoid un-intended consequences.

Many thanks indeed!

[becole]

When it comes to content personalization, it's perfectly fine to do that--I do recommend having a "core" set of content (like a paragraph or two at least) that all users will see.

You may be confused about how the bots see this content--think of Googlebot as one user. That user, the search engine spider, will only see one version, as they are a user. They will generally not see multiple versions.

What I recommend is that you decide what is served up to the search engine bots--which should be the same content that you serve up to someone who are first-time visitors.

[unirmk]

Hi Bernadette,

Thanks for your input.

I guess my question, put more succunctly would be- when does "personalisation" cross the line to become "cloaking"? And how to avoid Google confusing between the two. By definition personalisation involves showing one set of content to one set of users, and at least one other set of content to at least one other set of users.

I totally understand that essentially Google will only see one set of content as a "first time" user, but given than that content will not be the same as the content all other users see, I can see that at some point Google might mis-interpret this as a maliciouos technique. Maybe my concern lies in y ignorance over exactly HOW cloacking is carried out technically.

Thanks