google.com vs google.co.uk search results ranking

@pavsidApr 17.2008

Hi folks,

I think this may be a more common problem than people realise, try it out and let me know.

Issue is that my site ranks higher in google.com than in google.co.uk.

There seems to be no logical explanation for this…my domain is a .co.uk, my hosting comapany is UK, the host IP address is in UK. Why would it rank higher in google.com?

If you’re going to try this out then you can’t just put ~~[url]~~www.google.com[/url] in the address bar as it will automatically default to google.co.uk when you press ok. The way to test it is to perform your search on google and then when the results are displayed change the ….google.~~[COLOR=”Red”]~~co.uk[/COLOR]/search….. in the address bar to ….google.~~[COLOR=”Red”]~~com[/COLOR]/search….. and then press ‘go’ in the browser (do not press ‘search’ on google as it will default back to .co.uk again).

Sorry, just realised that most of you are probably in US anyway so your default will be google.com anyway…but there’ll no doubt be some UK readers…

Any ideas?

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10 Comments(s) _↴

@seo_promotionApr 20.2008 — #Google.com ( When accessed from UK) shows mixed results from both UK and worldwide search results ( especially US).

It is really confusing for webmasters since there is no guide to teach them how to transfer rankings from .com -> .co.uk and vice versa.

However you should follow these basic steps :-

a) Set the geo target location of your website to UK. If you are not sure about Google's geo target tool then read : http://blog.seohawk.com/google-geographic-targeting/

b) Try to gain links from .co.uk websites, rather than .com websites hosted in US. You can find several free and paid directories, websites from where you can get back links.

c) Exchange few links ( If you do not want to go for paid links) from high ranking websites within your business niche from UK.

These above tips will result in shifting of your rankings from .com to .co.uk.

Along with this you can add a header tag

<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-GB" />

en-GB means English from United-Kingdom:

I am sure your rankings will shift from .com towards .co.uk within 1-2 months ?

@pavsidauthorApr 20.2008 — #Hi,

Thanks a lot for your advice. I have already set the geographical location as UK and most links to my site are from .co.uk domains anyway - I'll add the meta tag you suggest and hopefully this will make some difference.

The links suggestion is an interesting one to bare in mind for the future.

Many thanks again.

@sssrpmNov 13.2008 — #Hello,

I am expriencing a similar problem. We are ranking number 6 on google.com but on PAGE 6 on google.co.uk. pavsid, have you solved this problem, and what steps did you take?

Robert

@pavsidauthorNov 17.2008 — #Hello,

I am expriencing a similar problem. We are ranking number 6 on google.com but on PAGE 6 on google.co.uk. pavsid, have you solved this problem, and what steps did you take?

Robert[/QUOTE]

Hi Robert, sorry for the delay getting back to you.

I can't say that i found the solution to the problem and neither can i say that following these points will solve yours. However i've done a few things which i'm sure helped matters and they are definitely worth doing - the last point has seen the biggest improvement but that'll be due to other factors.

First, make sure you've done all the steps as mentioned above by seo_promotion - i had already done the first ones so only needed to add the meta-tag - which I can't conclusively say had that much of an effect but i'm sure it helped and I am now adding this tag to all my UK sites.

Second, add references to 'UK' or 'United Kingdom' in your site and title tags - however i didn't see any immediate improvement following this either.

Third, don't expect a high position for new domains - it can take 6-12 months for newly registered domains to get up there for certain keywords - the older the domain, the more 'trustworthy' the search engines view it. In the meantime, build up those incoming links!

Fourth, consider the history of the domain, maybe this is affecting it? You can check if your domain was previously used by someone else on archive.org. We suspect that this may have been the case with our original domain as we recently switched to a new one and are now consistently in the top 10.

Whilst the biggest improvement came from changing the domain, we definitely witnessed steady improvements over a period of 6 months and then an even better improvement when the domain became about 7 months old. That being said, our new domain was a mere 4 weeks old when it started hitting the top 10 search results in Google...however this new domain contained major keywords which i think is the main reason for the drastic improvement.

Overall, the only conclusion i can make is that in this respect Google is completely unpredictable! However by implementing the above points, getting good quality in-links and including keywords within your content, headings and titles then you will certainly not be doing any harm and it will only be of benefit to you in the long term. If after 9 months you're still not getting the results you should be getting then perhaps consider changing the domain as we did - but make sure you do it properly otherwise all your hard work will be wasted.

Anyway, hope that helps, and I wish you the best of luck.

@JackbobNov 20.2008 — #I found exactly the same issues with italian sites, often i must position keaywords multilingual as Hotel or B&B, and i get results really different depending of the google language, i could get 1° position in .it and 50° in .com .

Sometimes happens the opposite!

May be i've too few experience, but it seems really a random result...

I'm searching a guide for this kind of issues, but i did not found any useful info neither in the web, nor in the bookshop. Does anybody know where i can find a complete guide trought this?

Thanks

B&B Alghero (will this be useful in .com or .it?)

@sssrpmNov 20.2008 — #Pavsid,

Thanks for your thorough post. I am putting these things into practice.

I also found: http://www.seo-expert-services.co.uk/blog/posts/better-google.co.uk-search-engine-rankings.html to be particularly useful on this topic.

Robert

@seobeginnerNov 12.2012 — #it is a late contribution, but so far there is no info to help solving such issue.

I am working on a travel web that ranks high in .com but in .uk it is really bad.

i assume the uk link building would be fine but all ideas of shifting the domain name look really hard to handle especially when we deal with 4 or 5 years age domain.

my web privatetoursinegypt.com has a fair ranking in google.com but looking for same search term in .uk it comes on page 3 or 4 what reallu upsets me.

long time seraching for useful info about this but it seems a hopless case here.

@sssrpmNov 12.2012 — #Hi,

I don't think this issue is relevant any more as Google have improved here a lot.

See: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62399, in case you've not set your geographic target.

Hope it helps.

@ProSenceNov 23.2012 — #The difference of location only, if you want to rank in any particular location then you have to build links based on that location.

@Steve_SmithDec 19.2012 — #If your site is specific to a particular market then it is wise to host your site in the same country. Google also has lots of different data centers, which means that search results can even very occasionally vary between locations on the same Google extension.

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