Don't know if this is old news but I have just noticed that some of the top ranking pages from Google Australia (which I am located) are now mixed in with the world results for the world results options. This could be an old change that I never really picked up so I apologise if this is the case. I did a quick search in the forums but couldn't find anything.

What I mean for example is if I am searching for the main phrase of the site I work for we used to rank number 4 in the world results and number 1 in "pages from Australia". Now the site ranks number 1 in both the world results and "pages from Australia". This is through Google detecting where I am located (which is nothing new). If I do the same search in an Opera browser where it can't determine my location the site ranks #13 in the world results.

Is the mixing of these results in the world results something new or simply something I have missed?

Is location mentioned in the search query Merlin78?

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050517-135157 on the blog talks about this more, the fact that Google has been skewing its country-specific results more even if you don't actually push any buttons for filtering.

I was tracking this in Google in April (http://www.platinax.co.uk/blogs/brian/archives/2005/04/change_in_how_g.html), after noting major differences across Google.com, Google.co.uk "web" search, and Google.co.uk "UK only" search for a specific keyword. Interestly enough, at the time I couldn't find the same variation across all keywords I monitor.

My suspicion is that IP linkage may be playing a role in the skewed "web" results on a national Google domain - in other words, sites especially linked to from UK IPs as having prominence in the "web" search of Google.co.uk - which would make link-building from local hosted sites more important as an issue, IMO.

*..which would make link-building from local hosted sites more important as an issue, IMO.*

Certainly makes sense, particularly when location was a major factor.

If I was targeting web design Nottingham, I'd certainly look for a bunch of Nottingham links, even if they were off-topic ;-)