12 replies to this topic

[elimelight]

Hi,

One of our UK web sites which we host in the USA is a .com, and we are having trouble finding it on google.co.uk when we select the "pages from the UK" filter.

Having done some reading of other topics in this excellent site, I understand that this will come as no surprise to most of you! The answer seems to be that I should move my hosting to a physical box in the UK.

However, I have control of the domain at a UK ISP, and could change the Nameserver back to them, then set the www A record to point at the US server. Does anyone know if this would help?

In other words, will Google determine the web site geographic location by resolving the IP of the web site (in which case I will be wasting my time), or by the Nameserver IP?

Thanks for any help with this.

[Jill]

Welcome, Steve!

I would recommend buying the .co.uk version. That should be a big help.

Jill

[elimelight]

Thanks for the quick response Jill.

Unfortunately, the co.uk version is already taken. I will suggest to my client that we find a close-matching or related .co.uk name.

Do you think resetting the nameserver to a UK ISP and then using DNS to point the www A record back to the US would be pointless then?

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Steve, welcome
Here comes some news you don't want to hear, unless you have a UK domain the following will cut you out of the search regardless of where you host.

aol.co.uk
askjeeves.co.uk
altavista.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
freeserve.co.uk
msn.co.uk
lycos.co.uk
hotbot.co.uk
tiscali.co.uk
yahoo.co.uk

Google is a bit of a wild card, it sometimes gets it right with regard hosting in the uk, but it sometimes gets it wrong as well.

We have a UK based customer who insisted on a particular domain name that was not available in a .uk so went for .info, result? they are top 3 for loads of phrases, (#1 mostly) but when you hit the uk only button on G they are out of there, and they are hosted in canary wharfe somewhere

[BrianR]

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong here, OWG.

One of my clients is a British company that has a .com domain which is hosted in the USA. I took a unique phrase from their home page and searched for it using the 'UK only' filter, when available on the top 3 SEs.

* Google.co.uk found it in the main index, but not with the UK filter on.
* Yahoo.co.uk found it with or without the UK filter.
* Msn.co.uk found it (as far as I can tell, they don't have a UK filter option)

How come I get different results to you??

Yours confused of Chester

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Brian, It looks like things might have changed since we discussed this a few weeks back and Barry MMT put us right on standards? The list was copied from one of his posts, I am going to have to track it down.

Interesting stuff this, my site disappears on a uk search

[BrianR]

Ok, OWG - keep me posted on what you find. I remember Barry discussing this problem with reference to Google, but I'm hazy about the rest. Actually, I'm hazy about most things right now. I'll probably do a more thorough search another night - tonight I'm just too knackered, so I'm heading for bed. Goodnight all...

BrianR

[OldWelshGuy]

I thought that maybe it could be allowed in via an ODP uk listing, but alas that theory has just fallen on stoney ground..

Onto plan b

[MakeMeTop]

>Yahoo.co.uk found it with or without the UK filter..

I've never seen a .com listed with the Yahoo UK filter on - unless it defaults to the directory (which still happens on a few searches). If this is happening on web pages, could you sticky me the site and term - that's quite big news!

MSN UK gives a .co.uk bias as default - it doesn't filter out .coms - it gives a boost to sites it believes are UK sites either by hosting or domain. It does have a filter on advanced search though.

AOL UK has just switched to using Google's UK filter.

BBC is like MSN UK.

AJ UK allows .com sites in if you go PFI as does AV UK.

The rest have pure .uk filters.

[t49]

now where did I put those contracts to sell co.uk domain names?
any idea how they would treat duplicated sites? ... i.e. a .com,and a .co.uk?
would they show one and not the other?
penalize the both of them?
show the .co.uk in the U.K.,and .com here?
complicated issue,even from an SE programmers' point of view.
could search site looking for contact mailing address?
when I do a search on G,here in Canada,there is a slight difference in the results if I select the 'pages from Canada' option.Many Canadian sites are .com,and hosted in the U.S..Many .ca sites are also hosted in the U.S. So it appears that they are checking for something else.
toss an electronic coin ... heads they win,tails we lose.
search results are better this week.

gonna stop typing now.
Tom

P.S.: since all the SEs seem to be in bed with each other,maybe there's some kind of virus going around. Just a thought.

[mcanerin]

Canada has, I've learned, different rules as far as geolocation is concerned for a lot of SE's.

Due to the number of .coms and our predisposition to hosting in the US, most SE's use a combination of IP blocks and .ca, but it's still wierd. In short, Google UK apparently handles geolocation differently from Google Canada, for a start, and it gets more confusing after that.

Most of the time .ca's are geolocated by IP with Google and Inktomi, but FAST apparently uses something different (or it works worse, I'm not sure which), and I haven't tested Teoma yet.

Ian

[anthonyparsons.com]

Being similar, I have performed similar feats within Australia with .au regional searches. Many Australian engines seem not to touch a .com domain when specifically searching with the .au region.

Little experiment, by inserting Australia within the title and page text a few times, guess what? The .com domain then starts registering within the .au region searches with similar rankings obtained from that of the web search function. I don't know whether an editor looks at them for relevance or maybe a lucky dip, not real sure. What I do know, is that it did obviously take an extra couple of months before I saw the listing within the .au regional search, compared to .au domains.

So, I do believe that .com domains can be indexed and rank just as well within the regional listings of those engines, providing you just give them a reason to. Splash the country around the website and see how it goes I guess?

[BrianR]

That seems to make sense, Anthony - I suppose the SE could search for the contact address and see whether the local region comes up??

BrianR