Regional by Country Google Ranking Techniques

I have a site whose target market are for people using:

www.google.com.ph

My site ranks number 7 on google.com for the target search term, but goes down to number 15 on google.com.ph

Any ideas on how to make it higher in google.com.ph?

Or like in any country in general?

 

You can register a .ph domain but will need some time to get this ranked. .ph domains get preference over .com for visitors in the Philippines.

Also language content would have helped but since English is also used in the Philippines, I doubt this has an effect.

 

My site is top rank in google.co.id for "game fansite", but in google.com my rank droppend in 3rd. Maybe because my site use indonesian languange, so I have more rank in google.co.id

 

The MAIN factor in how google ranks pages locally is the hosting. If your hosting IP resolves outside of the country se where the search is being carried out then you get scored down.

e.g. search on google.co.uk for widgets your widget site is located in the US so you get scored down a few places. Here is the killer though. if the searcher hits the 'uk sites only' then your site disappears TOTALLY (there are ways around it but they are very complex and hit or miss).

So the plain answer is to get the .com site hosted on a server that physically locates via Ip to the PH region.

One thing here. Physicall location does NOT refer to where the server is actually housed in the world. Many servers in London telehouses although physically placed in London, end up physically locating to the US as that is where the IP address resolves to.

There is a physical location check here at Dp in the tools section. USE IT, and trust in it more importantly as it is NEVER wrong, REGARDLESS of what your hosting companies tell you. Many hosting companies have no idea what physical location means.

 

oh I dont know that, thank for clearing the info, it's very usefull

 

Thanks Everyone, and Yes, I suspected the geographical IP issue also. Hosting just sucks over there. LOL

 

I agree with OWG. Also you can try building links on sites located in your target area and with the .ph extension.

 

If you can get your site hosted in a server in philipines, you might get some visibility for your country searches.

 

NO that is wrong. it doesn't matter WHERE the server is is, it matters where the server IP address resolves (the physical location), you have just made the most common mistake.

 

Can you have an IP address that resolves in a country but the physical server itself is in another country?

I am a bit ignorant with this, so how can this be done? Does this need some DNS zone edits? Like an A or CNAME change? Which I really do not know what i am talking about.

 

Ok most smaller companies get their IP's from another company, or it might be a case of a large company having servers in various countries, but ALL the IP's are registered to the parent company in its own country. A prime example of this is 1&1 hosting. No matter where the servers might be, they will ALL have aphysical location of Germany, as that is where the ownership of the IP's are assigned.

Many UK companies are actually reselling American Ip's so the server Might be in London, but it physically resolves to America, as that is where the ownership of the IP is.

 

Just to add to this

In Ireland we have .ie TLD which is only available to Irish entities. Google also looks at the TLD. I have numerous sites hosted in the US with .ie domains. These sites rank very highly for their designated key phrases on both google.com and google.ie ('pages from Ireland' option). My understanding is that the 'pages from Ireland' serps are based on sites with IPs that resolve to Ireland and domains with .ie TLD.

I beleive that if the TLD is restricted in availability then google will use it in that countries serps regardless of where the ip resolves to.

I have also seen some conversations regarding googles use of whois info with regard to figuring out where a site 'belongs to'. Not too sure about this however.

 

here is a reply I got from Google when I originally contacted them

> Hi James,
>
> Thank you for your note. Searches that are restricted to a
> country domain
> should only return sites that are physically hosted in that country,
> regardless of the extension. If you would like your site or
> others in the
> UK to be returned in a 'UK sites only' search, we recommend
> that you have
> the site hosted in that country. This should make it more
> likely that your
> site will return in a search for pages from that country.
>
> If your site is currently hosted in the correct country and
> you feel that
> Google is incorrectly detecting your site's location, please visit
> http://services.google.com/georeport/ to report the error.
> In your report,
> please use the 'Comments' section to let us know the IP
> address of your
> website, as well as where the website is physically located.
>
> We hope this response is helpful to you.
>
> Regards,
> The Google Team


There is more to this than meets the eye though but it is a sure fire way.

 

Very interesting reply, but that URL is dead now... now checking Google to see what I can find...

 

Just wondering - when did you make that enquiry?

 

Ages ago. I will mail them again I think for an update. Although, they are taking longer and longer to reply these days.

 

The same is what I mentioned earlier

 

Indian SEO, I am not sure you have grasped the difference in my posts. You made your post AFTER I made my initial post, and you said

This is wrong, or at the least incomplete. It doesn't matter where the SERVER is located, it is where the IP ADDRESS resolves that geo locates a website. So it is not what you posted earlier, it is what I stated in the #4 post on the thread and repeated later.

it is VERY important that people check the physical location of the IP address and do not take their hosting companies word for it. As I stated earlier, many do not know what is meant by 'physical location' and will take it to mean where the server is located, which it dosn't

 

Sorry .. I do agree with that.. I expected the IP also of that country. But after reading it with I got to know that it need not be like that.

 

I was not having a go IndianSEO, honestly, which is why I said 'incomplete', it is just that so many people have made the mistake of contacting a local hosting company who then plonk them on a server in America or germany