Has Anybody Else Noticed?

[sabina]

Google.co.uk on searches for .co.uk and .com domains?
Bear with me while I attempt to describe the situation!!!!
OK I have a .com domain, that for examples sake deals with hotels, based in the uk. When I conduct a search on google.co.uk on a ww search the website comes up, however if I conduct the same search but selct the uk serp's the website is not listed even if i type the url in the search bar!!!!
Anyone got any ideas as to why this is happening, I would appreciate some feedback, or alternativley, let me know if I haven't described this problem to my best capabilities but I am totally dumbfounded!!! :confused:

[MattUK]

I'm guessing the domain is hosted ouside of the UK? If so that's most likely your problem.

[sabina]

Yes but that would be too easy, the websites are hosted in the uk and to add insult to injury I have other .com websites that are in the uk search of google.co.uk and the ww search, but what I need to know is why there are some that are listed in uk search and ww search and others that are listed in the ww search but not in the uk??????????????????//
Can somebody please tell me whats going on.
Please feel free to PM to get a real example!

[Northie]

by default google will not list .com s in the 'pages from uk only' search. It is likely that your .com s that are listed will have an address of some sort on them.

Try putting a spiderable address on a contact page with your full uk address and 'United Kingdom', possible a +44 phone number as well???

[sabina]

Thanks Northie, but this has already been done!!! Any other suggestions?

[Chris_D]

Sabina, If you are talking about the site in your profile, then MattUk was correct.

Your site is a .com; hosted in Germany. Usually; the country extension is the first reference point; if thats not conclusive - then it looks to the location of hosting/ nameserver

As such - Google uses the hosting to determine the sites 'country'. And as your site is hosted in Germany - guess what?

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=drivenandridden&btnG=Suche&meta=cr%3DcountryDE

[MattUK]

Google can't magically know if a site is UK based or not. It looks at sever things such as,

The TLD extension
The IP location
The IP location of the nameservers
The IP location of incoming links
The content of the site itself

Personally I believe (based on experience) that the TLD extension and the IP location of hosting make the largest difference. With a .co.uk you can usually get away with having it hosted outside of the UK. With a generic TLD then it's almost a must to have it hosted in the target country. Even then sometimes you'll run into problems and you have to start looking at the other factors on the list.

[mick g]

if it is the site in your profile then I am seeing the same content on your home page on the contact us page too with no way of contacting you

without doing a detail comparision the .co.uk and the .com version of the site "look" exactly the same which is duplicate content on a clone site

[Asiadeep]

I would suggest that you have a .co.uk site too just to cover all the corners. Having said that though I would bet that even UK people search on google.com too so don't sweat it too much.

[MattUK]

A huge proportion of users in the UK automatically redirect from the .com to the .co.uk version and the vast majority don't know how to change this to access the .com version.

[sabina]

Sabina, If you are talking about the site in your profile, then MattUk was correct.

Your site is a .com; hosted in Germany. Usually; the country extension is the first reference point; if thats not conclusive - then it looks to the location of hosting/ nameserver

As such - Google uses the hosting to determine the sites 'country'. And as your site is hosted in Germany - guess what?

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=drivenandridden&btnG=Suche&meta=cr%3DcountryDE

Sorry, no I'm not talking about the site in my profile, I look after a number of websites and there appears to be a pattern forming regarding the se's and .com's the website in my profile is perfectly fine as this was started using a .co.uk domain and therefore well established in both

[sabina]

Google can't magically know if a site is UK based or not. It looks at sever things such as,

The TLD extension
The IP location
The IP location of the nameservers
The IP location of incoming links
The content of the site itself

Personally I believe (based on experience) that the TLD extension and the IP location of hosting make the largest difference. With a .co.uk you can usually get away with having it hosted outside of the UK. With a generic TLD then it's almost a must to have it hosted in the target country. Even then sometimes you'll run into problems and you have to start looking at the other factors on the list.
Again, good advice however the servers and the ip are both based in the uk, the uk addresses of these websites are clearly displayed within the website.
Just cant think what is going on, I can assure you all that the locations are all UK based even when conducting a dns search everything comes up uk based!!! I am well and truly stumped!

[sabina]

if it is the site in your profile then I am seeing the same content on your home page on the contact us page too with no way of contacting you

without doing a detail comparision the .co.uk and the .com version of the site "look" exactly the same which is duplicate content on a clone site

Again , no it's not my profile website, and this website has been re-done too.

[sabina]

I would suggest that you have a .co.uk site too just to cover all the corners. Having said that though I would bet that even UK people search on google.com too so don't sweat it too much.

Hi there, yes .co.uk websites already there too, sorry to go on and I do appreciate your comments but has anyone else seen this pattern before?

[Chris_D]

Sabina,

Yes. If your site is a .com; then the 'location' of that site will usually be determined by where the site is hosted.

So if its hosted in e.g. Australia - then a search on Google.com.au would show the site for both a 'www' and 'pages from Australia' search for the domain.

However - if its hosted in e.g. Australia - then a search on Google.co.uk would show the site for a 'www' search, BUT NOT for a 'pages from the UK' search for the domain.

It doesn't matter where YOU are physically located - it matters where the .com site itself is hosted.... hence my example of your profile domain, which is a .com hosted in germany, and therefore shows up in Google.de as a 'pages from Germany' search - and obviously won't show up in Google.co.uk as a page from the UK. Because its in Germany - the .com site isn't in the UK.

Google generally chooses the 'country of origin' based on the hosting/ nameserver for .com domains.

[sabina]

Hi Chris D, I have advised previously the website is hosted in the uk, the physical servers are based in the uk everything to do with the afore mentioned is all basd within the uk, the servers exact location is london and I have been to see the servers!!!
Therefore although I know you are helping, you are not really telling me something I dont already know!

[Chris_D]

Hi Sabina, so where are the nameservers?

[sabina]

The name servers are based in London as I mentioned in my previous posting

[Chris_D]

Sent you a PM. Look at the hosting company nameserver location.....

[sabina]

I think people are starting to loose track with this post, the query has nothing to do with the website in my profile and the servers are uk based.
This is a query regarding a number of websites I am currently optimising.

[Poonam]

Google.co.uk on searches for .co.uk and .com domains?
Bear with me while I attempt to describe the situation!!!!
OK I have a .com domain, that for examples sake deals with hotels, based in the uk. When I conduct a search on google.co.uk on a ww search the website comes up, however if I conduct the same search but selct the uk serp's the website is not listed even if i type the url in the search bar!!!!
Anyone got any ideas as to why this is happening, I would appreciate some feedback, or alternativley, let me know if I haven't described this problem to my best capabilities but I am totally dumbfounded!!! :confused:

the same problem was with me too. But i figured out that my domain name is not .co.uk and it is hosted outside uk. Now i have moved my hosting but still chances are less to rank in google.co.uk :)

[sabina]

I know what you mean, it would just make my life so simple if the domain was hosted outside the UK but hence, it is not, therefore guys, back to the drawing board, I shall type this in capital in the hope that somebody will understand:

THE WEBSITE IN QUESTION IS NOT THE ONE IN MY PROFILE AND

THE WEBSITE IS HOSTED IN THE UK


Many thanks

[Chris_D]

Sabina,

I know you keep saying the site is UK hosted.

But the nameservers, and netblock owners, might not be.

And that may just explain your issue.

You don't want to disclose the site, so why don't you run your site here http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report? and see what country, what netblock owner, and what nameservers, are returned.

If they return UK - then I don't know.

[MattUK]

Has the site always been hosted in it's current location? I took on a .com site that was previously hosted in the US and it took ages for Google to correct the location. I'd probably suggest dropping them a line to see if you could draw their attention to it and deal with it quicker if this is the case.

The only other suggestion would be to get links from other sites located in the UK and make sure that your UK address and telephine number is published on the site - though if this is a factor it's probably marginal.

[sabina]

Sabina,

I know you keep saying the site is UK hosted.

But the nameservers, and netblock owners, might not be.

And that may just explain your issue.

You don't want to disclose the site, so why don't you run your site here http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report? and see what country, what netblock owner, and what nameservers, are returned.

If they return UK - then I don't know.

Thanks for the tool Chris_D however I did mention in my previous posts that I have already done this using dnsstuff.com and the results advised uk based.
I do have sites that are hosted elsewhere and the results fluctuate from the lisiting in both www searches and UK only.
I am litereally at the point of pulling my hair out, so excuse me a while I am about to do a full statistical analysis on the whole problem, that apperently nobody knows about and shall advise of the solution as I am sure this will pose to be a problem for UK based searches and businesses.

[sabina]

Has the site always been hosted in it's current location? I took on a .com site that was previously hosted in the US and it took ages for Google to correct the location. I'd probably suggest dropping them a line to see if you could draw their attention to it and deal with it quicker if this is the case.

The only other suggestion would be to get links from other sites located in the UK and make sure that your UK address and telephine number is published on the site - though if this is a factor it's probably marginal.

I dont want to sound ungrateful here, but please do read my previous posts for this particular posting as I have already asked, please do not post unless you have something to say that I dont already know, this forum is for seo experts I believe, so where are they??

[MattUK]

I dont want to sound ungrateful here, but please do read my previous posts for this particular posting as I have already asked, please do not post unless you have something to say that I dont already know, this forum is for seo experts I believe, so where are they??

Maybe if you actually read the posts before discounting the information we might actually get somewhere.

Can you point to the post in the thread where you answered,

Has the site always been hosted in it's current location?

[sabina]

Maybe if you actually read the posts before discounting the information we might actually get somewhere.

Can you point to the post in the thread where you answered,

Has the site always been hosted in it's current location?

yes the site has always been located in the UK.
And I was referring to the fact that I had already conducted a location test on the 1st page #12.

[MattUK]

And I was referring to the fact that I had already conducted a location test on the 1st page #12

Like I said in my post that you didn't read the 'previous' location of a site can make a difference and since it wasn't covered earlier in the thread I thought I'd check.
I doubt you'll get much further help with an attitude like that though.

[sabina]

Many thanks Matt, however my attitude is purely a reflection of my frustration of the entire situation, I can appreciate people are only trying to help, however when I get comments that bear no reflection on the topic at hand then I'm sure even you can find it hard to maintain a happy smiling face!
As advised, once again many thanks for the relevent info and for the help.
p.s. you will be happy to know I have now figured out the problem. :)

[MattUK]

p.s. you will be happy to know I have now figured out the problem
Which was?

[egain]

Many thanks Matt, however my attitude is purely a reflection of my frustration of the entire situation, I can appreciate people are only trying to help, however when I get comments that bear no reflection on the topic at hand then I'm sure even you can find it hard to maintain a happy smiling face!
As advised, once again many thanks for the relevent info and for the help.
p.s. you will be happy to know I have now figured out the problem. :)

I appreciate your frustration Sabina, however you have to understand how we would approach such a scenario. If i came to you and said my computer was broken you would work find out what machine it was, what the 'symptoms' were, and then work through a list of possible solutions. It is the same to a certain degree here, and people such as Matt and Chris in particular do understand their field, however it does help if you have more information to hand in order to help effectively.

As regards you finding the solution you were looking for... mind sharing it???

[Da Gamer]

Your domain can't be a U.K. hosted site.

[sabina]

Hi Da Gamer, sorry to disappoint but this site is fully hosted in the UK, the servers and the domain all over in the bright sunny isles of the UK. Besides I have found out what the problem is so I guess I no longer require any solutions that dont bare fruit.

[mick g]

and seeing as you asked for help in the first place with all of us wearing a blindfold it would of been courteous to of posted what caused the problem in the first place which would be beneficial to the forum and any other members who may be in the same position