4 replies to this topic

[deniasol]

Hi,
I'm a new member here so I apologize if my question has been asked before. I live in Spain in an area with a large foreign population, which results in a large group of people working with OS in different languages. This has a huge impact on Google search results. My website ranks Nº 1 and 2 on Google for my primary keywords but only if you perform the search with an English OS. If you search for the same keywords on a computer that has a Spanish operating system, I won't even rank on the first two pages. The same is true for German keywords, I rank Nº 2 and 3 for my main keywords in German but only if the computer uses a German operating system. Again, if the user has a Spanish OS all my rankings are gone. I'm not talking about different locations here, all my searches were performed in my own office but on different computers.

Question: how to I optimize a website for different operating systems? Or is that something that simply cannot be done?

Many thanks in advance.

[Jill]

There's a lot of info in our International SEM Issues Forum where I've moved your question. It's not really a question of optimizing for the operating system or computer, but for the language and/or country you're targeting.

[deniasol]

Thanks for your answer, Jill. I'm targeting customers from Spain, Germany and England. My website ranks very well in all three languages, provided the clients use computers with operating systems in their native language (Spanish, English, German). The problem is that many foreigners live in Spain, speak Spanish and use computers with a Spanish OS. If that happens, my rankings are gone and I lose a lot of potential buyers.

[Jill]

Wondering if there's a way to detect the operating system and show them a specific page created for that system then? (Which I suppose is what you're asking!)

[deniasol]

Wondering if there's a way to detect the operating system and show them a specific page created for that system then? (Which I suppose is what you're asking!)

That's what seems to be happening, except that the ranking results do not make too much sense to me. You would think that Google gives preference to Spanish websites if you search on a computer with a Spanish OS, no matter what language is used for the search. But that's not the case. If I search for English language keywords with a Spanish language OS, I will still get English language results but not the same ones that I get when I search for the same keywords with an English language OS. In my specific case it hurts me a lot, because instead of being Nº 1 or 2 I end up being Nº 45 or so. Hence my question if there is a way to optimize a website for different OS languages.