Odd Google.co.uk Issue

Hi

I was wondering if anyone can help me.

I have a site and for its keyword it is page one in google.com, yahoo.com (and uk yahoo) and number one in live.com

Yet in google.co.uk its on page 13?

For a different keyword its page one, or number one in each search engine (including the uk)

Why is this the case, i cant figure why it would do that? Why page 13 when every other engine puts it on page one?

Thanks for your input in advance

 

It's because each search engine ranks pages differently. You have done well to get Page 1 in numerous engines.

Where is your site hosted? If you are NOT hosted in the UK, your relevance for google.co.uk will be less and this could be the reason why you are on page 13. Also, have you thought about this: you may have stronger UK competition, and since google.co.uk favours UK hosted sites, those which are hosted in the UK will get priority if you are hosted elsewhere.

It's difficult to say without more information. It could also be a temporary phenomenon.

 

its a .com hosted in the US, but 60% of traffic is UK based, and primarily it is a UK site.

UK competition we only have 1 or 2 competitors, one we out rank on ever other engine.

Oddly it was page 1 a few months back and now it fluctuates between page 8 and 16 in google.co.uk, where each other engine it maintains or gets a better ranking.

 

Google has been a bit strange lately and many of these things are probably temporary.

If you have a UK site and your main target audience is in the UK, I would seriously recommend getting a UK host. Search is becoming more 'local' anyway and eventually engines will serve the most relevent pages to the most revelent audience.

 

thanks for you input wizs

Problem with UK hosting is its awful and expensive! LOL

 

It can be and I know there are a lot of bad hosts out there. The problem with the UK hosting scene is that there are only so many companies, and any that advertise on the back of magazines and so on, are usually crap. Things like FH come to mind!

The US has tons and tons of hosts but good value UK ones are available. If you are thinking about doing this you could go for a reasonably priced VPS system but it depends on the size of your site!

 

With my company, we had 3 or 4 dedi's with various companies (FH included ) and every one was awful!

I just use hostgator now for shared and dedicated and can honestly say I have never had an issue

But I understand the UK benefits in the SE's, its something I most likely will have to address sooner rather than later, thanks again Wizs

 

OK no problem. If you are happy with your host then stick with it for now, better safe than sorry! You have excellent rankings already so hopefully in time your .co.uk rank will improve again!

 

get more backlinks pertaining to .co.uk and you should be fine... but as others seomasters alreeady said earlier its bcuz of the fact that your site may not be as relevent considering that its hosted outside uk

 

thanks zendeigner will do

 

Just set the region to UK in Google Webmaster Tools as google thinks your site is American. That is all you need to do!

 

Try to gain more reviews or backlinks at UK hosted sites and co.uk extension sites.

 

Yes I've seen the same thing in comparisons with google.com and .uk as well as .co.za Google search results for a .com site. Sometimes we do well in both, sometimes well in the local search engine and sometimes vice versa, and it's been this way for at least a couple of years.

The only time we do see any consistency is when we have a .co.uk or .co.za domain

I never belive anything I read in forums but I think you have a couple of difficult choices. Get UK hosting (we have a Rackspace dedicated box and it's 540 ukp + VAT a month!!) or buy the .co.uk domain and redirect the .com to it.

We went for option A at the insistence of the client, but in the past when we've (301) redirected .com sites to new .com domains, we've transferred the rankings as well - I'm pretty confident the transfer would work for a .com to .co.uk redirect as well.

CHeers,
Paz.

 

problem with the .co.uk domain is someone has it

We have the .com, .net, .org and .info

If I targeted UK users in my webmaster tools, would I lose my high rankings in google.com? As for my two keywords im going well in google.com..

Thanks for all your input

 

If you target the UK in webmaster tools, I think it would affect the ranking in other countries. Can you take a longer term view and launch a .co.uk site too?

 

Yes, specifying your target country would make google categorize you partially towards more geo-oriented results; as a result may affect your google.com ranking.
The other solution of gathering more .co.uk backlinks would BROADEN your array of backlinks and may fetch you stronger support in the google.co.uk domain.
You may mix match with both of the above mentioned ways...