Hello, Just wondering here, I rank number one in Goole.com for the keyword I aim for but I don't appear in Google.co.uk at all, here is my question. If I switch my geographic location in Google Webmaster Tools will I lose my number one ranking in Google.com? I want to start ranking in Google.co.uk along with holding number one in Google.com
You need more .co.uk backlinks. What is your target ? uk ? or the entire world ? If it is .co.uk ... switching may be a good idea.
In theory, you should still keep your international Google ranking, I've seen mixed results when doing this actually. 40% of the time clients sites lost their international ranking, while the other 60 or so percent kept it. Odds are in your favor.
don't switch. it's a bad idea. Just submit your website in local directories pointing towards the pages you want to rank in .co.uk Also put an address (if real) in uk at the bottom of the pages you want to rank in .co.uk
Why would you say it's a "bad idea", geo-targeted sites still rank #1 for keywords in Google international results (ex: google.com). The whole concept behind geo-targeting is to tell Google which area your trying to target.
but once google think you are from 'X', and you rank high for this location, I wouldn't switch the geographic location in Google Webmaster Tool. It could hurt the high ranking he already obtained.
I think you need to read about the whole concept of geo-targeting with Google Webmasters Central. https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=62399&ctx=tltp&hl=en The basic feature of this is to country specify a non cc-TLD (reason why cc-TLDs can't be geo-targeted). This is used to help the site come up in country specific search results and geographical results... period. My numbers about my clients can't be sololy based on changing that setting since with geo-targeting you work on geo-linking more than anything.