Local Search Engine Optimisation – Bing Tips
Bing has put together some fab information to guide webmasters on local optimisation, with details about how they determine which location a website belongs to.
In order of priority, they use the following bits of information:
- Metadata embedded in the document
- HTTP headers
- Top-level domain
- Reverse IP lookup
Full details:
1. Metadata embedded in the document
Use the “content-language” meta tag to embed a document location in the <head> section of your documents:
<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en-gb”>
The “content” attribute is comprised of a 2-letter ISO 639 language code, followed by a dash and the appropriate ISO 3166 geography code. For example:
- de-at: German, Austria
- de-de: German, Germany
- en-gb: English, United Kingdom
- es-ar: Spanish, Argentina
Alternatively, embed the document location in either the <html> or the <title> element using the same format:
- <html lang=”en-us”>
- <title lang=”en-us”>
Keep in mind that the priority order for these tags is: <meta>, <html>, <title>. In other words, the document location set in the “content-language” meta tag will always supersede the document location indicated in the <html> or <title> tag. Its best that you use one option, instead of multiple options here.
2. HTTP headers
For host-wide location tagging, embed the document location by using the “content-language” HTTP header and follow the language-dash-location format.
For more information on setting HTTP response headers :
- In IIS7: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753133(WS.10).aspx
- In IIS6: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732442.aspx
- In Apache 2.2: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_headers.html
3. Top-level domain
The country code top-level domains (or ccTLDs) influence the document location – e.g. if it’s a co.uk domain.
Top level domains other than ccTLDs, including .com, .net and .org, don’t influence the document location.
4. Reverse IP lookup
For each document we add to Bing’s index, a reverse IP lookup is performed to determine the document’s location.
Posted: February 4th, 2011 under Digital Media.
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