10 replies to this topic

[OldWelshGuy]

For a little while now Google has shown, often slightly different results on a google.co.uk (world) search. But today I received a call from a client to say that they have moved from #4 to #1 . Now I know we have done a lot of work on the site as well as off page, but this was not what triggered the move.

A little more research, and we can see that in the first 15 results, there is not a single non UK geo located page!

Their main competitor is a Canadian company, and they have gone from 1 to 16. A quick check shows that there are UK sites below them, so it looks like google is giving a lot more weight to sites that are geo hosted.Any oneelse seen this around the world?

I would love to show the example, but client confidentiality disallows it

[Hyperformance]

Great OWG! And congratulations are still in order! Don't short sell the work of you and your client.

You see, it could have been that you were doing some shady seo and never realized the gain you speak of... but instead, you were in a position (geo or not) to take those upward moves based on the algorithm change or whatever - and that your website was qualified to take that (those) spots.

You had a website capable and worthy of the promotion, whatever the reason for others dropping off.

- Scott

(Yeah, it must be in the stars) LOL

[kevinsource]

OWG,

I am seeing the same thing, but also on .co.uk. Have not checked any other localities. In past weeks, conducting a search on .co.uk produced very similar results as my default .com in the U.S. Today, however I am seeing many more UK websites in place of previously listed US based sites...interesting.

[OldWelshGuy]

I have checked the physical location of the IP and there is no question that non UK IP 's are getting less weight, (or UK Physically located IP's are getting a boost, not sure which LOL)

[reddevil]

Interesting.

I last checked our SERPS last week but rechecked today and we have moved up 3 places from 10 to 7 for our main phrase......but we are not located in UK.

[linux_lover]

Thats a bit of a bugger... I have hosting with a uk company that have its servers in Germany. So does that mean that even though I have a .co.uk domain my site is being penalised because the server is physically located in Germany?

If so I am finding a new hosting company

[Martin C]

I've found for a long time that google.co.uk has a biased towards UK websites.

It seems a middle ground between 'google.com' and 'google.co.uk with pages from the UK results set'.

Although I benefit I have always found it odd that google.co.uk without the UK filter should be different. If the search is set to 'the web' surely logic says it should be showing similar results to 'google.com'?

I just wonder though how many people really use google.co.uk - I personally don't know anyone.

It is the same for msn.com and uk.msn.com - although there I do think most people using msn in the UK use uk.msn.com - just because of the way it is set up.

[OldWelshGuy]

On most of my uk content based site I get 50% at (least) traffic from Google UK search.

[prawin]

Friends
I differ someway on Google.com and Google.co.in results

They are nearly similar for india specific querries and most (atleast first 2 pages) show all .com's

I hope its not

Prawin

[discountdomains]

Geo-located results are likely to be more relevant to local markets so a gradual move in this direction seems to be what Google has been phasing in - I remember a year ago seeing a similar sort of thing when google switched the default for UK browsers to be google.co.uk. Lots of our customers reported better SERPs then just because more people were using the local results.

A side effect is that advertisers have to up spend on adwords outside of their local market - which may be the other motive.

Clare

[oneofthe3lions]

Its never going to be a great way of doing things tho. How many people who have bought their own websites even had an inkling of where the domain was actually hosted? I certainly didnt for one. So there must be a very high percentage of uk companies with US etc hosted domains. So it wouldnt be fair to rank the uk hosted ones higher. Im going to buy up some of the country specific domains and park them as suggested somewhere, I believe on here.