I have a site that is basically a made for adsense site. It is on a subject that is not specific to region in any way (bonsai pictures in my signature). It is hosted in the states and has a .com TLD I am based in the uk. The site ranks no.1 in the serps on google.co.uk but only no.8 on google.com? I don't understand why this is happening. Can anyone please explain?
Google considers that your site is the most appropriate site for that query to UK users. For American users it considers other sites more appropriate. You can change your geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools, and get more links from USA and .com sites. Google uses a number of factors to establish appropriate geo-targeting - where your backlinks come from, your tld and the location of your hosting can all play a part.
I am aware of these factors and that is why i have done everything specifically to target .com search results. There is no reason at all that there should be any leaning to the UK. It is hosted in the states, all backlinks are totally random etc. etc. The only thing i can think of is that google is looking at the Whois information and seeing a UK owner? - would that have any relevance? does google do that? I can see that it is giving preference to me on the uk serps but why? Thanks for your answer by the way
this is odd as the 2 main factors (tld and hosting location) are correct for a .com ranking. are most of (or your best) IBLs from UK (hosted) sites?
it would be the first time have ever heard of / seen that. whois is mostly so false / wrong that it would be unlikely Google would start using it as a ranking factor IMO
No my IBL's are definately not from uk hosted sites, they are mainly from article sites and blog comments. I agree with you on the whois info but its the only thing i can think of that leaves a UK footprint?
He said it was located in the States. To the OP, is the keyword something competitive? And how long have you been first on Google UK? I don't see you ranking for bonsai pictures on google.co.uk ( you're on the first page, but not first)
Thanks for the replies, My geo location isn't set to anything so its not that. My server location is in arizona i think - so in the U.S. It is showing in the .com results, its just at number 8 - no.1 in the u.k. results Why don't the seven sites that are beating me in the U.S. listings show up in the UK listings? I just cant understand the logic. I would have thought that the uk serps results would be worse than the us serps as i am targetting US. When going to the UK serps i would expect to see all the sites that are beating me on the US serps plus those targetted to uK serps such as .co.uk's i.e. more competition and lower rankings - Really confused? Thanks anyway though
ecouse maybe you ave .co.uk extension Host in UK and Backlinks from UK links ... Get international backlinks ...
Its depends on your Domain name and your backlink location. If your domain is .UK. then is would be easy to rank on GOOGLE UK. I guess you try to some some .edu or .gov backlink then it might help to rank on GOOGLE COM .
"I don't see you ranking for bonsai pictures on google.co.uk ( you're on the first page, but not first)" yea it's doing a bit of a dance. Goes from anything from 1 to 8. The keyword is nothing too competitive. It hasn't been there long though so maybe it's just bedding in. I think that what is confusing me the most is what I mentioned earlier. why are the sites that are outranking me on .com not outranking me on .co.uk? Why am I considered relevent to uk search results and them not. That's what concerns me, maybe gogle is seeing something about my site that is giving it UK preference -and I don't want that
Maybe, you have greater competitors in .com than .co.uk sites. When it comes to .com, there are many blogs to compete with compare to geo targeted search engine. I would suggest you to do more link building specifically getting links from random (.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov etc and not from .co.uk) and check your ranking again on google.com I'm sure you will see some hike there.