Hi folks. First time poster here. Using the keywords "sports handicappers" our website ranks 68th with Google.com but ranks 9th with Google.ca Can anyone explain why there is such a difference? We have tried very hard (with our limited knowledge of seo) to optimize our site but we haven't seemed to have much luck with the major search engines. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Possible because French is also popular in Canada I believe the word "handicap" usage and popularity might be some different for these two countries or cultures. When the importance fields are different may also cause the different SERPs. I suggest since your target market is in USA then focus on USA.
That was exactly what I was thinking on this matter. Just get more backlinks from .com sites (and any other U.S. sites for that matter).
Most (if not all) of our backlinks are .com's. Is it possible that more people from Canadian ip's visit our site than those with American ip's? Thus the reason for a better ranking with Google.ca. Grasping at straws here, but we would really like to achieve similar rankings with Google.com. Any other thoughts are appreciated.
No, it's not because you have more .ca backlinks. Do a query for your keywords. My guess is you'll find that the number of competing pages in .ca is much smaller.
It is because there are more competitors in .com than .ca for your keywords. If you want to get into the first 20 results by Google.com then you have to work on your SEO day and night, because where the competition is to high then it is very hard to increase your ranking
true, your overall seo being from one "engine" to another is going to vary slightly. With the .com searchengine, it is being searched x amount more times, the competition for those top ten seo spots on that particular google is increased. Whereas with the .ca you are getting less traffic from there and the competition for those spots decreases overall.
Is your site a .ca or .com? Is your site hosted in Canada or the US? I have .ca and .com sites and have moved my .coms to a host in the US because of this. But... it's purely speculation. I have seen improvements but can't say for sure how much of an affect switching hosts has made since I've also done a lot of SEO during the same time.
A lot of what you guys have to say makes a lot of sense... I understand that there are considerable more searches on the .com engine than the .ca engine. However, would it not all be relative? While there are less searches on the .ca engine we are still competing with all of the same sites, as those on the .com engine. Do you folks with sites rank better on the .ca engine than the .com engine? We are from Canada but our site is hosted in California.
The site is a .com and is hosted in the U.S. Has anyone else compared keyword searches on these two engines?
No. It has nothing to do with how many searches are being performed. It has nothing to do with how much traffic you're getting. It has to do with the number of competing sites, which is often lower in a regional Google. See above. To be included in a regional Google like Google.ca, the site has to meet certain criteria that identify it as appropriate for that regional Google - a regional domain name like yoursite.ca, OR hosting in Canada, OR domain registration with a Canadian address, OR some other clear identification of the site as Canadian. That means the total number of pages matching your search query in the Google.ca index is considerably smaller than the number in the Google.com index. As I said in post #6 above, you simply have less competition in Google.ca so it's easier to rank higher.
you rank well in .ca cause the pages on .ca are smaller ....... to rank well on the main google site ..... please ensure that you write more quality articles rich with your keywords ...... and submit them to article site and get authoritative links a link is a link though with this unique probs of yours you need a high pr site and the best way to do this buy 3 difffrent links from pr6 site ... this should do
Will you people kindly try to READ the thread before posting? The question has already been answered. And it is NOT a unique "probs" - it's not even an uncommon "probs".
In my view, minstrel's statement that you have less competition in .ca is absolutely correct. I would add that there are often significant differences between results from various regionals and that it is difficult to draw any conclusions from those differences. For example, one of my sites is #5 on g.com, but #12 on g.ca. Another of my sites in the same niche is nearly the exact opposite. It makes no sense. So, I wouldn't read to much into the difference in position. /*tom*/
Minstrel... I hear what you are saying... I'm just not so sure that there is actually less competition with the .ca engine. than the .com engine. For example if you search keywords "sports handicappers" on Google.ca there are 145,000 personalized results. Search the same keywords on Google.com and there are only 144,000 personalized results. Now I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything... Just an observation. The domain however, was in fact registered with a Canadian address. Do you think that if it was registered with a U.S. address we would be ranked higher with the .com engine?
Google.com Results 1 - 10 of about 144,000 for sports handicappers Google.ca web Results 1 - 10 of about 144,000 for sports handicappers. Google.ca pages from Canada Results 1 - 10 of about 14,200 for sports handicappers. What's the URL?
Yes, this is what I can't understand. Using those keywords we rank: Google.ca Not in the top 100 Google.ca the web 5th position Google.com 61st position So why such disparity between the two engines? URL www.propicksonline.com