Hi there, What are your thoughts on the best ways to properly target specific countries with Google (Google.ca, Google.co.uk, etc.)? Is the TLD (.com, .ca, .com.au) enough to target a specific country and rank better or does the server location (IP address) does matter also? Share your thoughts!
Hey Eben; the tld, server location and inbound links all count. My experience is that the inbound links are most important tho'. For my .uk sites to rank well in Google UK I have to spend time getting backlinks from UK hosted sites. Austin.
thats really depends on your competition. for low competitive niche and terms, geo specific TLD can be enough where for competitive search terms, you will need to do all you can (local host, country specific tld, backlinks form sites in the same region, etc)
Hi Eben; Yup, I host the majority of my .co.uk sites on a UK server (nativespace is fairly cheap and reliable). I agree with sultanofseo tho', for low comp keywords I have no trouble hosting .uk on US servers - these .uk sites don't rank very well in Google US so the tld is the obvious determining factor. I have many instances tho' of hosting .com's on UK servers and still ranking well in the UK - as long as my backlinks are from UK sites too. Hope this helps, Austin.