Need to appear in UK listings but not!

I'm based in the UK, and I have a site on a .org extension, which is not showing in google's "pages only in the uk", but is top of "the web".

So, i guess that when I signed up to my hosting package I didn't see where their servers were based, but is there anything that I can do to get my site seen in the uk results? The domain name has the name of the county where I live also so that didn't help!

Just wondering if i'm missing something or whether I should move hosts etc..

Cheers

 

three ways to rank for a country

1) hosted from a company in that country

2) that domain's ccTLD

3) other sites from that country link to you

roughly ordered by importance/weight in google from my experience.

 

For "pages only in the UK" searches, it is essential to be hosted on a server physically located in the UK. Even a .co.uk extension would not help you if your site was hosted off the island .

 

it helps, just not nearly as much. same with links from other sites determined to be in the country.

 

really? different here in aus then.

 

He's talking about the "UK only sites" option. On Google.co.uk when you do a regular search you get, pretty much, the same results as from Google.com. But if you click the "pages from the UK" button, then the UK relevance really kicks in.

One of my Canadian clients competitors who is currently ranking number 1 on Google.com, and Google.ca, gets bumped back to page 3 for a "Pages from Canada" search. Their site is hosted in the USA. Many of their incoming links are from other Canadian sites, and they have the main keywords in their domain name. Also the results of this Canada Only search gives 7 .com pages and only 3 .ca pages on page 1. And the word 'Canada' is in their content. So, the server location is a key element for this competitors poor ranking for a Canada Only search.

Don't worry, I'll be knocking them out of top spot soon enough.

But it would be interesting to know how often people using a country specific TLD version of Google actually click the "Pages in this Country" option.

 

Yeah thats right axemedia - it is the "uk sites only" that i wasn't appearing in. Incoming links are all UK sites as well, so it must be fatal that it is hosted elsewhere. Too bad seeing as USA hosting prices are cheaper than UK. Its not a profit making site so I guess it isn't too fatal. I also have a UK based reseller account since set up - i just didn't really want the hassle of moving everything!

I almost always click on the "UK sites only" though which is why i wanted to appear there. I think its something to do with wanting to see the most specific information that makes me do that...

 

I dont think a large percentage of people will click on the 'UK only sites' to search google.co.uk

 

I always seach for UK sites only. It gets rid of crap like about.com, wikipedia and blogspot.

 

I remember reading about a survey on this topic, but can't find the web page now!

I remember that it revealed that about 85% of people do click 'uk only' on a search. This was to cut down on all the US sites that come up, which are usually of little interest to us.

I think it is a common trend across many countries, and in most countries there are three options. Eg, The Web, Sites in Spanish, Sites in Spain

When we build mutilingual sites we have to take into consideration that sites in Spanish are not always going to be indexed in Spain, and that sites hosted in Spain will not always be in Spanish!

Marketing for the web is a minefield!

JB

 

I disagree, I think alot of casual surfers would click on the local results to narrow down there search.

 

Youll need to get a UK based server. If your IP is in the UK then youll appear on the UK listing for your keyword providing your website is SEO'd

 

IMHO: this is the better way.

Language/Topic/etc. all of these informations are transmitted through the links. So if you have got a web site on a .it extension, hosted in a server located in Italy, and you want to rank it in google.co.uk, the only way to do that (without change the server location) is to link it from many web pages with a good uk "language ranking".

At the same time, if you want to decrease the ranking of another web site, you can do it. Just link it from many pages with good TR but in a wrong language.

This Black tecnique is useless, 'cause you have to pay each link, but you can understand that a link from a PR9 isn't always a good thing

 

I'm not sure I agree with this - my .co.uk website is hosted in the US, but appears reasonably well in the UK results. But perhaps I would do even better if I was hosted in the UK as well? I'm not sure...

Cryo.

 

You can be indexed on a UK search engine if you have a .co.uk extension even if you are hosted elsewhere.

For sites such as MSLive it is not so important where you are hosted, but Google places a lot of emphasis on the physical location of a site and will rank you higher if you are on a UK IP address.

To find out whether your site is indexed simply run a site:mydomain.com search on Google.com and cross reference it with the same search on Google.co.uk

A lot of sites will have fewer pages indexed in the .co.uk data centres than on the central ones if they are hosted outside the UK.

JB

 

that's hilarious

I'd still be afraid to do that though (assuming I could), just because of the legit stuff that may be filtered out.

you most certainly would. the physical location of your host is the most important factor in google, followed by the ccTLD and then which sites link to you.

 

Can you point me in the direction of some authorative articles that back this up? I'm not arguing the case, I'm just asking to see a little more 'meat' on the subject.

Thanks, Cryo.

 

It was on the official google blog but I forget which one now. I posted the link on here a while back in a similar topic.

 

I don't see anywhere near as much difference in WW searches and UK searches as you used to.

Also - why is it a .org? Is it an organisation/charity or did you buy that domain extension because the .co.uk or .com were not available?

 

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000146.html
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/34752.htm
http://www.webconfs.com/country-specific-search-engines-article-7.php