49 replies to this topic

[d.greenfield]

Thank you for the reply, OWG. Is there an unoficial oficial list of which engines will do what for this issue?

[Jill]

Welcome d.greenfield!

Jill

[d.greenfield]

Thank you. I've actually been a long time reader of the forum and newsletter. Also heard you speak a few times at SES thank to my employer, TrafficLeader, sending me. :-)

I enjoy your insight and thoughts.

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi D, not sure if I have Welcomed you, so have a wave

Here is a post made by Barry Make Me Top who is a mod here, I could not get the original url so I have linked to his website to quote source, although this copy is not there.

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QUOTE:

Google, MSN (Inktomi), Yahoo (Google), Freeserve (ATW), Ask Jeeves (Teoma UK DB). Of those, 4 have different ways of boosting or filtering UK sites from the method used by Google
the following somewhat popular sites who filter by .uk TLD (if UK only sites are selected) or get a ranking boost by .uk TLD and couldn't care less where you are hosted!

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

Test it out. Go to Yahoo UK, select UK only sites on web pages and look for your .com that is listed in Google UK - it ain't there in Yahoo UK. Do the same on AOL UK and choose UK sites - it is not there either - even though they both use the Google DB currently!

In addition - Google.co.uk will list a site with a .co.uk domain regardless of where hosting is based and will also list a .com etc in their UK sites DB if the hosting is identified as being in the UK by IP lookup which Google sometimes gets wrong. So the safest bet? Use a .co.uk.

Nearly every portal and ISP offers a UK filter, 90% do it on TLD. So, in short, if you are selling in the UK it is IMHO insanity not to use a .co.uk domain. Failure to do so can lose you thousands of potential customers looking for UK sites and using a filter where you won't appear if you are a .com

It is only Google who works in the way stated previously. I never fail to be staggered at the number of companies who miss out on highly focussed traffic by not seeing that all other search portals apart from Google do enable some sort of filtering or give a boost purely on domain extension.
Quote End
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HTP

OWG

[SmellieNellie]

Quick Update for you.

I took your advice OWG and have registered my site with 123Reg who as you say are cheap, but don't answer e-mails!!

My only problem now (and it is a pretty major one!), is that I can't view my stats!!!!!!! great! I am not fantastic on this log stuff so I think I am gonna have to spend some money and call them on Monday!

Anyway - I do now feature under UK pages so I am a step closer!

Diolch/Thanks for your help!

Nellie

[web_girl]

I have and am having serious problems with Googles 'pages from the UK' option.

Here's some history...

Have a primary .com domain plus absolutely tons of others that were used by all the marketing guys etc. Switched them all with server 301 redirects which tidied up web stats and helped a little with rankings it appears.

Had to revert one of the co.uk ones as Google dropped any returns from the 'pages from the UK' listings.

co.uk domain had the dmoz listing - now (as of yesterday) .com domain has it. NEITHER site now returns in 'pages from the UK'.

Google say it is just ranking changes but if I search on the company name - we don't appear at all.

We are a UK company, with UK hosting and sell only to UK but the brand people wanted a .com (hummmmm...)

Any suggestions?
Web_Girl

[SmellieNellie]

I can see OWG is writing to you as we speak and he is the guy to tell you better than me. But, am I right in understanding that the primary domain name is the .com and the .co.uk is the redirected URL? Would the company now allow it to be the other way around? That way they can have the .com advertised on all their literature, but as far as the search engines etc are concerned, it is the .co.uk domain name that is primary.

Smellie

[OldWelshGuy]

hi Web girl welcome

In theory if you have 301 redirects from the .com to the .co.uk, then all Page Rank transfer should be transferred on.

It sounds a bit of a pigs guts really though, why do companies allow marketing people who know nothing about the mechanics of the Web, to market within those mechanics? beats me.

Any how search for your domain 'allinurl:www.yourcomanyname.co.uk, then ll, a chunk of text from pages within your site (focus on pages that do not appear in the above 'allinurl' search, as if these are gone then they will not be passing PR back and this could account for the drop.

This should then tell you if your site is within the Google database, or if pages have been removed. It may be the case, that some pages have beens tripped due to 'perceived' duplicate content during the domain hopscotch game that you marketing experts played. This being the case it should right itself in time when the correct pages are found and the wrong ones removed.

If G say that your not banned, then that is the case, so it could be down to a whole multitude of things. Has your site ever been ranked? have you re-designed? gone dynamic? is Googlebot trawling your site? (check the logs)

I would suggest you do this, then repost the findings maybe

hope this helps
OWG

[web_girl]

Bora da OWG

I’ve used “site:www.site.com” (and the co.uk option) to see what’s in the index.

* The .com has 2,230 results (but only seems to visually list 1000 page when you ‘scroll through’?) – which has gone up
* The co.uk has 41 results – which has gone down.

If I search for text in quotes verbatim in google.com or google.co.uk, I get a return with them but nada when I use ‘pages from the UK’ on the co.uk google site.

The site has always been ranked. It was redesigned (with seo in mind) at the beginning of 2003 and content has also undergone subsequent optimisation. We also carried out the switching I mentioned, in the summer 2003, to tidy up all those messy marketing DNs – but had to point them to the.com variant.

We have seen an increase in page 1 inclusions for our keywords from 40% to 75%. The main jump has been in Jan/Feb this year.

We are a large site but all hand coded html (believe it or not) – no CM system, no dynamic content generation.

We ARE being crawled as a new page that only went live last Friday is already in Googles cache.

But as I say, I have no problems with the google.com./co.uk returns – it’s just the UK sub search that we have dropped off the face of the earth on.

I did wonder if it is because we use .com but other .coms list and do very well thank you very much for the same sort of terms as we need to appear on.

I think it is because of the directory ‘alliance’ shift from the co.uk dn to the .com one. I’m just hoping Google will rectify things soon.

Appreciate your feedback.

Web_Girl

[web_girl]

Hi Smellie

Yep - you are right. The primary is the .com and we switched all the other derivative and campaign ones including the co.uk version. However, we ended up having to un-switch the co.uk one as we dropped out of the 'pages from the UK' in the google.co.uk searches - then we listed again with the co.uk...

But now we have disappeared once again...?

I like your idea on the change but the problem is that all emphasis was placed on the .com and the directory listing was changed from the co.uk to the 'com - and even though the request was made in summer 2003, it has only just happened so now the .com has the benefit of the dmoz listing.

This, I think, is the problem with UK pages sub search. But theorically, they should now list the .com version shouldn't they?

Thanks for input
Web_Girl

[SmellieNellie]

Hi Web_girl

The fact that all the emphasis has been placed on the .com including the directory listing is fine, you wouldn't need to change it but you would just set your .com address to redirect to the .co.uk domain. But I think you would have to set it so that it does initially go to the .com page where there would be one of those re-directing messages and then a few seconds later the .co.uk address will appear.

I may be wrong, but if you set it so that it does it automatically, this can cause problems with the search engines as technically you are submitting one url but going to another. I will have to hope some of my more experienced colleagues will correct me on this though if it is not the case. (Apologies in advance!).

This, I think, is the problem with UK pages sub search. But theorically, they should now list the .com version shouldn't they?

Yes I would have thought so. You did say that your hosting company is a UK company, but are their servers UK based? You may need to ask your hosting company.

But then again, you say that you were listed, and now you are not. Has your hosting company moved servers? How long ago were you listed? I think it may be that you need to get in touch with Google to find out why you are no longer listed just to be sure they haven't penalised you for something.

So sorry I can't be more help - darn search engines eh!!! Let me know how you get on.

Smellie

[OldWelshGuy]

You did say that your hosting company is a UK company, but are their servers UK based? You may need to ask your hosting company.

No Need to call them, run a check here Digital Point Physical server location tool Nellie you can see your site is in the US here

[SmellieNellie]

OWG - thanks for that! I have sent you a PM (as you probably know by now), but I have just thought, I wonder if this is why I have suddently seen a decrease in the number of UK traffic and an increase in the US traffic???

[OldWelshGuy]

How mad is that Smellie? you sign up with a company who are part of the 'Host Europe' group, and they locate their servers in the US

[nedguy]

Ah..!

I was curious so I've just tried your DigitalPoint link OWG

:slap: Why did it never occur to me that Hostway, of all people, wouldn't bother to set up racks in London?!

So, my next question is an obvious one.

The key issue is the .co.uk domain, but do any SEs factor the physical location after the country code?

In other words, would a UK site with a .co.uk, physically located in the UK, ever get ranked above a UK site with a .co.uk located on a server outside the UK?

Nedguy