Can anyone please tell me how G works out what country a web site is based in? Will it be focusing on the IP numbers or the Head tags? Or is it the content? Thanks!
It uses a database of georeferenced IPs to see which country the server is hosted in. So even if your page is russian or chinese, if it is hosted in the UK then G will think it is a UK site.
Uk sites will quite often show up in US listings, but us-hosted sites don't show up in UK listings unless they have a .co.uk or .org.uk domain.
A UK site will show in US listings, if: a) it's Bl**dy good and outranks the US sites (er..unlikely - we are but a small island) b) You get a .com name and host it in the US If it's UK hosted it's a UK site A .com hosted in the UK is a UK site A .co.uk hosted in the US is a UK site You are a UK site !
Your site will be listed in regional Googles if: 1. you have a regional domain name (.ca, .com.au, .co.uk, etc.); OR 2. you are hosted in the appropriate country This is either/or -- you don't need both. There may be other factors too, such as page content, but to date I've seen no evidence one way or another about that.
My site (hosted in Belgium with a Belgian TLD .be) is listed in Google Belgium & the Netherlands Google. These 2 countries have the same language (Dutch) so language is an important factor to.
According to the 'Website to country tool', my sites are hosted in the US, have .com.au TLD's, and are in the Australian results. Supports minstrels comment i suppose. It doesnt have to be both, but one or the other. If the US google is the .com one, then its in there too.
I am own a .ca website which is hosted in the US, and I am also associated with a second website which is .com and hosted in Canada, both in the same "industry" and both ranking in the top 5 to top 10 for several keywords on Google.ca -- other members on other forums discussing this topic have confirmed that my experience is not unique, and no one to date has shown me any evidence to contradict my conclusion.
I have sites which fit all examples and conform to the info given above. My .co.uk hosted in USA shows up in UK listings. My .com hosted in UK shows up in UK listings. My .com hosted in USA does NOT show up in Uk listings.
So if I fx. has a German language website hosted in Denmark, the site would show up in the google.de for german search phrases, but NOT if the searcher selects the option "Pages from Germany", right?
I don't know what "I fx." means, but if the domain name is a German TLD, then it should show up in "pages from Germany"...
Yes, in my example it is a German TLD. Thanks for your reply and sorry for my incorrect english. I wish so much that I could be sure that what you say is true... I was sure until now that only national located websites would show up in the SERPs for "Pages from <the country in question>" searches. Any documentation? I would very much like to see that.
I don't know of any. However, the question has been discussed more than once on other forums. As I noted above, my own experience and that of other site owners is that the TLD and the location of the host are the two known alternate factors, and in other forum discussions I've not yet seen anyone post any evidence to the contrary.
Ok, thanks. In the Searchguild Forum I discussed this a while ago, and I think the reason I'm a little confused is because there could be an advantage for local websites in the Google SERPs. I mean, comparing two websites both with a German TLD. The one is located in Denmark, the other in Germany. Some think that the website in Germany will rank higher in "Pages from Germany" searches compared to the website in Denmark. What do you think?
I think other factors will be a lot more important. For the two sites I mentioned, the one with .ca and hosting in the US ranks 1 and 2 for my best 4 key phrases in both google.com and google.ca, beating out .ca sites hosted in Canada for those same search terms, and yes my competitors' sites are definitely trying to optimize for those same search terms.
I just made a search in Google.dk and selected the "Pages from Denmark". The search phrase was "domino hosting". There was 98% pages from DK TLD sites, and there was a few .info, .net, .com and other TLDs also. That suggests that the "Pages from Denmark" option does not exclude all other TLDs than the DK. This is just an observation and is no evidence that the TLD/host location alternate thing is wrong. The same search also gave me a .com page which is located in Vredenberg, Curacao, AN. Where ever that is, it is certainly not Denmark. So how does this page show up in Google.dk with the "Pages from Denmark" option selected? Maybe a glitch?
Thats great, but there is a drawback in being # 1 in the SERPs: You have no idea have much better your page are than # 2 (or # 3 if your have both 1 and 2)... You just know they rank better...