I have this 6 month old site. # all text is on the site dutch; # all/allmost all links came from dutch sites; # hosting is in the Netherlands. # domain = a .com (doesn't matter right?) The domain-name is one of my most important keyword phrases, also pretty competitive market. The strange thing is...when i do a query for that phrase in Google.nl in i'm somewhere in around the top 90, but when i do a query for that same phrase in Google.com i'm around place 2! Is this sandbox effect? it doesn't make sence to me..that it's such a big difference. What do you think?
I'm guessing that the domain name is a Dutch word as well. Therefore in google.com there is hardly any competition for it, while in google.nl there is alot. But must say I have seen this kind of descrepancy only with new domains that have relatively few Dutch links and you say that most/all are Dutch. You can always check out the tool eKstreme made, http://ekstreme.com/domain-geolocation/, to really check if your links are from Dutch sites/are hosted in Holland. Just type in your domain and click on More Details or Export to Excel to see exactly the country where your backlinks are hosted and if they have a .nl extension. If they truely all are Dutch, than I have no explanation...
thnx for the quick reply correct, the domain name is dutch aswell according this tool are my links: 75% dutch 15% USA 10% BE / SWE/ CA Google.com top 15 <-> Google.nl top15 showing allmost the same results (some results are mixed) Except my site is the the dutch SERP #90
Does the domain name resolve to be hosted in NL? Sometimes the hosting is in NL but resolves to India or the US.
jep, hosted in Netherlands I hope that that it is..althou i doubt it, I'm seeing this over 3 months now..
Than my only guess would be that the sandbox filter is only applied to local versions of google, where the keyword is actually a money keyword. Because your targeted keyword are no money keywords outside the Netherlands, it does seem pointless for Google to filter those results outside google.nl How are your rankings in other countries, ie google.es, google.ca, google.co.uk, google.co.jp?
Yes that sounds logical.. I find it 'typical' that a couple websites that link to this site (nothing to do with this topic/theme, do come up (and above me) in the search) google.es #51 google.ca #51 google.co.uk #51 google.co.jp #51 Google.com #2 Google.nl #68 sorry it's not #90 I exaggerate abit still big difference..
That's pretty normal for a new site, as yours doesn't have any authority yet and the sites displaying your links have. Annoying yes, but also normal. First I thought it was because they know your keywords aren't English they would rank you in any local version in the English language, as they are sure the keywords aren't money keywords and wouldn't rank in other languages as they are not sure if they are money keywords. But this is not the case as you're ranking in co.uk just as bad. Maybe their language filter is only based on google.com, but that doesn't sound all that logical if you think about the UK version, but that's about the only the explanation I have atm...
small update: the website made a nice-jump in the SERPS and is now on this term #12 in google.nl still not the same as google.com there is the site on #1