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Robert Longfield - 5:16 pm Q: Further on Geotargetting. I run a multinational site with about 12 different languages being supported. We are implimenting geotrageting so users are directed to the appropriate language page for their country. The concern of some is that Google may penalize me... John Mueller - 5:35 pm A: I would recommend not redirecting users based on their location. This can be a bad user experience. It's better to allow a user to choose his version based on his searches. Rand: Such brazen hypocrisy! Google can geo-target its search results, geo-target its homepage, geotarget many of its other service pages, but heavens forbid anyone else do it. This is ridiculous. Robert - I'd say to simply do a quick check before you redirect your users. If their browser accepts cookies, feel free to drop one, re-direct them to the appropriate page and let your user data, feedback and analytics tell you whether or not it's the best experience or not. If the browser doesn't take cookies, drop them on an international landing page that lets them choose their country/language - this will also work well for search engine bots (which don't accept cookies), and will be able to find all of your country-targeted content.

Shipping charges too high - 43% Total cost of purchase more expensive than anticipated - 36% Wanted to comparison shop at other Web sites before making a purchase - 27% Could not contact customer support to answer questions - 16% Forgot usernames and passwords for store accounts - 14%

44% of shoppers surveyed by the e-Tailing Group’s research in late 2006 reported they typically compare 3 stores when making a decision, and 84% cited free shipping as “very to most influential” when buying gifts online. It could very well be a dealbreaker between buying from you or a competitor. So online stores that offer free shipping have an advantage over stores that don’t, right? Not unless the free shipping message gets through to the customer.