Hi Guys, I have a fairly new site thats has UK content, is mail order strictly for the UK market, prices are in UK £ pounds, but some of the search engines (google and msn) that I have notices are penalising me because the server the site is on is not in the UK!! Is there anyway of telling the bots, "hey this is a uk site, please show it on uk searches"? Regards. mark
I don't think they're penalizing you because you website is not hosted in a UK server. That's a myth. Stop believing that.
Well it seems strange that my site shows fine on google.com and google.co.uk all site, but not when uk sites is selected. Even if i search for specific terms. Any other ideas as why this is happening? Regards. Mark
You are better off on UK servers in fact if you have a .com name then you 100% need to be on a UK server, my site is hosted in Germany but I have a .co.uk name so I get away with it, I have checked Google.de though and I have noticed I rank significantly higer on that then I do on any other Google bar Google.co.uk, where you host your site can make a big difference.
Exactly, but for sure they won't penalize if you don't have a UK server hosting your site. @mdj101 there are lot of factors to considered but don't think it's because you're not on UK server thats why you're not ranking or got penalized by Google. I have some local website but it didn't prevent me from ranking locally. The bottom line is it takes lot of work to rank your site not just for few factors.
Hi Guys, Thanks for your replies. I have now found the following. Just so you know the servers as managed by myself. OK, So one of my clients who sell large clothing is successfully listed on google.co.uk and msn.co.uk on uk only searches, his site is on the same server although he is using a .co.uk domain. So it is a myth that you are not listed due to server IP address. So much for the knowledge of the so called pros on another well known SEO forum! HOWEVER. My site is currently running under .com as thats how I marketed it. and all the links that point to it, point to the .com I do own the .co.uk of this domain and the site is mirrored on this domain, (another question here about duplicate content) however, google is only seeing several pages on the .co.uk instead of the several hundred on the .com
mdj101 - on the flip side, I have several .com domain on UK servers and they all rank fine on Google.co.uk (pages within the UK).
So from this may be we can acertain the following. .com domain on non-uk servers IS NOT seen as UK site. .co.uk domain on non-uk servers IS seen as UK site. .co.uk & .com domain on uk servers ARE seen as UK sites. So, from this due you think I should rejig my site so its .co.uk main, re-shuffle all my online advertising and links to the .co.uk?
MMmmmm, OK. On further research if i do a search for part of my index.htm header on google.de for german sites i rank first, rest of the web its pages down, however the same search on google.co.uk for uk sites doesnt even find me. SO, what would you guys suggest to maximise potential. move the sites to the UK = pain in the bum or just migrate the site to .co.uk or do you have other suggestions. PS, anyone know of a good server host here in the UK
I suggest you move your site to UK based host. You can try http://www.senpai-it.com/ a UK based dedicated server.
you can contact them I think if you want windows OS. "If you require any other OS please contact us before placing your order" Fasthosts.co.uk seems to be reliable as well.
Thats correct. I suggest positive-internet.com Z hosting. Its the only shared hosting that I found to stand up to a digg without slowing down.