Google Results Different Outside The US

[dannysullivan]

Just came from a session of our SES London show dealing with language issues and how search engines create listings for their non-US sites.

Google suggested that it's doing more to show different results to those outside the US, if you use non-US versions of Google.

In other words, say you do a search at Google.com across the entire web, then use Google Germany to do the same search across the entire web. Traditionally, the results have been the same except for some possible minor variances.

Today, Google implied that the Google Germany search would now be more skewed toward favoring German related sites -- even if you hadn't specifically used the filter to German sites option. In other words, nothing would be filtered, but because you are using the German site, those sites might get a preference.

Google even implied that if you were to go to Google.com from outside the US, the results there might be more customized to your location, even when searching the entire web -- though likely to less degree than if you searched the entire web on Google Germany.

I keep saying implied because they stopped short of saying they actually do this, phrasing things like "you can imagine that we might" or "it wouldn't be surprising if." Qualifications aside, it explains some increasing reports I've heard from others that searching the entire web via Google but from outside the US brings back different results.

[easycure]

Extremely interesting info, thanks :)

Until now I haven't noticed anything other than very minor variations using google.es

If they go in that direction they are going to make my life MUCH more difficult, maybe also more interesting, but for sure more difficult.

When you say:

Today, Google implied that the Google Germany search would now be more skewed toward favoring German related sites -- even if you hadn't specifically used the filter to German sites option.

That would mean sites in german or sites from Germany or both (in the same or different ways)?

I work a lot with sites in spanish, so you can guess why I worry...sites in Spain and in Spanish, sites in Spain and spanish targeting Latinamerica, sites in spanish in Latinamerica targeting Spain, sites in spanish targeting the latinos in the US... :eek:

[rustybrick]

Thought so...I have been seeing this reported for a few months now.

I did my own tests and depending on the level of competitiveness the results could vary greatly between us results and german results.

I posted something about this at the Roundtable (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000488.html). It reads:

About a week before the Florida update (November 2003) I began conducting tests to determine the weight given to sites hosted in a specific country and the likelihood of that specific site coming up higher in the results when conducting a search from within that country. What sprung my interest in this topic was the complaints I was getting from overseas (outside the US) SEO Count customers. This tool is US centric because the results are driven by the Google API, so if you conduct a search with it, it will bring back US centric results. Those who used this application from outside the US (including most of Canada) received different results then what was listed in the Google API.

So I began gathering data by coming up with several keyword phrases, both very competitive and not so competitive, and looked up the site's server geographic location. After determining the site's physical location, I asked colleagues around the world to send me the top 30 results for those searches. What I found was that based on what country your searching from, you will more likely see site's that rank higher based on the location of the server the site is on.

For example, if Site A is located in Germany and I am conducting a search on a keyword related to Site A in a pub in Germany, then Site A is likely to rank higher then sites with a physical location in America. There are obviously other considerations but the results I have found were really revealing.

Unfortunately, I stopped the data gathering process due to the Florida update. At that time the results were all over the place. I have not continued the research but I hope to soon.

[Anthony Parsons]

I think that sucks just quietly. This is the exact reason you have a definitive choice between (web) & (regional). Choose your button! Why I would want to search regional, get results, then search the web and get similar results is beyond me. Do Google really have their thinking hats on for this one?

Sorry, but it sounds very silly to me Danny.

The results outside the US version are exact or only out by one or two placements. For the most part of it, you could just say they are the same unless you wanted to split hairs over it.

[Anthony Parsons]

Google says a lot of things though too. Like, at HR OWG posted a letter he received from Google about regional search and whether its best to have a regional domain or hosted in that country. Well, Googles response is host in that country, however; didn't take long and one of my forum members has server space in the US, so US IP, and his customers with .au domains are hosted upon it. Guess What? Those .au domains are reflected in Googles regional search, nothing to do with the hosted server location at all. They are playing us in some aspects IMO. Tell us only what they want us to know.

[rustybrick]

During my tests in November 2003, I saw a correlation between sites hosted outside the US and sites in the top results while conducting a search while outside the US.

I do not think this is a fairy tale.

[Anthony Parsons]

Yer, I don't think it is an absolute fairy tale Barry, just that the way in which Google responded, then some chatting and analysis, and well lah! US servers hosting .au domains and listed in Google .au search immediately.

The reason I really detest what Google has replied with is that in Australia, hosting is not even comparible to what it costs in the US. You would not get any account in Australia, like iPowerweb do for example even close to their prices. You would be looking at 5 x that cost for the same bandwidth and space.

So something like that from Google, makes you think, bugger, now I have to pay heaps more to get listed in their .au regional search. Yahoo and MSN don't care where your site is hosted.

That was the main upset I think with that email they sent Barry.

Searches that are restricted to a country domain should only return sites that are physically hosted in that country, regardless of the extension. If you would like your site or others in the UK to be returned in a 'UK sites only' search, we recommend that you have the site hosted in that country. This should make it more likely that your site will return in a search for pages from that country.

I think it was a little deceiving from what actually happens. My initial though was, crap. I host my clients that only target Oz, in Oz, but the rest, no way. Now I may think about getting them more value for their buck?

[AussieWebmaster]

I will try and get a definitive answer about this tomorrow... will be in the Google NYC office.
That is if they will give one.

[Anthony Parsons]

Uuummm, an answer from another Google office would be nice to compare notes. See if the left hand is talking to the right and all???

That'd be tops mate. Cheers.

[mcanerin]

All the major SE's look at the TLD first for geolocation, then at the secondary characteristics of IP and link analysis.

Google is the only major one that looks at IP address. Yahoo, MSN and Teoma all use link analysis instead. I asked this directly of the reps at the recent Toronto SES because this is an area of interest of mine (and I was speaking on the subject later that day and wanted to make sure of my facts)

So it would not matter where you were hosted, as long as you have the .au, .ca, etc.

It becomes an issue when you have a .com/net/org, and then you begin to see the effect of IP/server location in Googles case, and hub/authority membership in the case of the others.

Ian

[dannysullivan]

That would mean sites in german or sites from Germany or both (in the same or different ways)?

Honestly don't know for certain. My impression would be that they'd favor sites that are hosted in Germany/seen as German based. Most of those are likely written in Germany, of course.

I think that sucks just quietly. This is the exact reason you have a definitive choice between (web) & (regional). Choose your button! Why I would want to search regional, get results, then search the web and get similar results is beyond me. Do Google really have their thinking hats on for this one?

I can see it both ways. Many people may simply not make use of the country filter option -- some might not even notice it. So having a mild default tweak to favor sites from a particular country has some advantages, even if you are doing a "entire web" search.

However, my preference would be for this not to happen. That's especially so if someone has explictly chosen to visit Google.com. If you use that site, you ought to be able to see exactly what anyone else would see.

FYI, Yahoo seems to be doing the same thing but even more radically, for when you search at Yahoo.com outside the US. It's on my follow-up list.

So something like that from Google, makes you think, bugger, now I have to pay heaps more to get listed in their .au regional search. Yahoo and MSN don't care where your site is hosted.

Well, to recap a few other key points on being seen regionally specific by Google:

+ Host in a particular country, you'll almost certainly be seen as related to that country. So put your .com or .au site physically in Australia, and you should be seen as Australian

+ Have a country-specific domain. Got .au? Then even if you host in the US, you should still seem like an Australian site to Google. But what if you are an Australian site using .com? Then unfortunately, you're stuck -- the .com part doesn't expressly say Australian, so chances are if you host in the US, you won't be seen as Australian.

+ Write in a country-specific language. Write in French, you may be seen as a French-based site, maybe. You'll definitely be seen as a French-language site.

+ Links. If you have many links from major country-specific sites, then that might help you seem related. IE, get sites that are known to be seen as Australian to link to your site, and it might be seen as Australian.

[Nacho]

Danny, I'm sure you experience this a lot in the U.K., so It's nice to see things change. They are paying more attention to detail and differentiation into other countries now.

I have also been told that even with U.S. search, the engines will balance out language in the algorithm to those link clusters that determine communities, such as with the Hispanic Market for searches in Spanish for example, where a highly popular Hispanic business site talking about “publicidad para Hispanos” (translates to "advertising to Hispanics") would rank higher than the popular online version of the NY newspaper section in Spanish talking about the same. Supposing both sites have equal link popularity and optimization.

I look forward to see this happen sometime soon and drop some of those implications we hear a lot.

I will be in Mexico for the next 5 days and have remote access to my PC at the office (U.S.), so I will be testing a lot and can see both, so I will let you guys know. I'll try KWs in multiple themes that are commercial and non-profit content.

[qwerty]

Just to clarify... It was stated that the SERPs at google.com may differ depending on the user's location, but would this mean that if I, in the US, run a search at google.fr, I may see a different SERP from what someone in France would see running the same query on google.fr with the same settings?

I'd hate to brag to a client in France that I'd gotten them to number 1 on .fr, have them check on it and tell me I'm lying.

[rustybrick]

correct. The reason I found out about this was because I offer a tool that checks SERPs using the Google API. Many of the customers are from overseas, and many of them were complaining that the results were wrong.

I did some investigating and learned that the Google API only brings back US centric results.

So if they are in France, the results can and often do differ from the US centric results.

You can be #1 on the screen of a person conducting a query in a US based office, but #3 on the screen of a person conducting a query in a UK based office.

[Anthony Parsons]

As I said earlier, the idea sucks. Who ever thought that one up at Google, or even mentioned it as a future concept should take themselves out the back and give themselves 10 or so uppercuts and wake up!

G is different and all, that's what stands it out, but stupidity is a whole new kettle of fish.

[AussieWebmaster]

It is good to know that this is being done... I see Google's viewpoint, local results should be more applicable to users... optimizing by country has been something we have incorporated in our approach... we use muliple languages, so the pages for the language specific keywords work, especially through support of language related and country specific inbound links...
We also grab the .au etc as available.... local presence is required in some cases... we had to establish a physical presence to improve and allow us to get into certain directories...
This is an ever expanding part of the industry now and it is good to see people working it as diligently as other elements.

Let's keep this going and provide some new insights.

[digitalpoint]

They have been doing it for some time now, and it's a good idea in my opinion. Google is trying to return the most relevant results to the user, so putting a small weight on sites physically hosted in Germany for people searching from German IP addresses (as an example) is a good things.

The results are never wildly different, but it's definitely part of their algorithms.

[AussieWebmaster]

According to someone at Google the searches first recognize where the surfer is coming from and also the Google domain they are searching with.

The results are filtered by that method and yes then the IP address and domain of the site also has a play in the varied rankings.

[domain]

I have noticed since Monday 24th May that whenever I do a search on google.com none of my adwords appear? Instead I see US adword advertisers.

If I do the same search on Google.co.uk they appear okay - either by searching under "the web" or "pages from the UK". I was at SES yesterday, visited the Google stand and the adwords did appear on the .com site okay when I did a search?

However, one of my clients has noticed a considerable drop in enquiries over the last 10 days and when I visited him this evening he could not see his ads on the .com site either?

The ads are set up to appear in the UK only, but prior to the 24th May they automatically appeared on both the .co.uk AND the .com sites?

Anyone else in the UK experiencing the same problems?

[mcanerin]

This isn't just a Google thing.

For example, msn.ca does NOT offer a Canadian Sites Only button, instead, it gives a bonus to Canadian sites searched on it automatically - no opt out.

Looks like Google is moving towards the same type of thing. Interesting.

Ian

[Anthony Parsons]

Mate, that is the reason Google has (web) (regional) searches available. How much more regional do we need to get. When you want to search the "web", that's exactly what you want, a global search not specific to your region, otherwise I would just click the little "regional" button.

I think what we may be missing here is that Google.com is all you have in the US, which is the global competition, however; possibly Google.com (only) include the regional "US" button on their page like all other countries already have access too?

That is possibly what I am forgetting about the US searches. We have regional variation already, you do not. The US just get smashed against world competition. If that's what your understanding off it is, then I totally agree on that aspect.

[Kal]

+ Have a country-specific domain. Got .au? Then even if you host in the US, you should still seem like an Australian site to Google. But what if you are an Australian site using .com? Then unfortunately, you're stuck -- the .com part doesn't expressly say Australian, so chances are if you host in the US, you won't be seen as Australian.
I can vouch for this. My sites are with an Aussie hosting co that uses US servers. When I used regional domains it didn't seem to matter. Now I use .biz, I hardly rate in regional engines.

[Anthony Parsons]

+ Links. If you have many links from major country-specific sites, then that might help you seem related. IE, get sites that are known to be seen as Australian to link to your site, and it might be seen as Australian.

Now that's an interesting concept isn't it? I haven't heard something like that before. Thanks Danny, something new to possibly toy around with for results.

[Opie1Canopie]

From my perspective, this regionalization based on IP is a bit frustrating. I've posted this before...we are a large organization in the US and our office buildings in my location inadvertently have a IP address (proxy) assigned to the UK. I see UK intended results often. I have to include the UK (or all countries) on our AdWords campaigns so my internal clients can see their US targeted ad and to avoid the hassle of explaining why we can't see them.

I think this is somewhat significant, because US targeted AdWords would not be seen by people in our office buildings - I just wonder how many other organizations have the same issue. And this definitely makes me suspicious of ads targeted at specific states because of major proxy servers being located in states different than the actual users.

[Kal]

I have to include the UK (or all countries) on our AdWords campaigns so my internal clients can see their US targeted ad and to avoid the hassle of explaining why we can't see them.
Yeah, I find that annoying too. I need to use New Zealand in my US client ad campaigns so I can see how they look/perform. Another way to do it is to use a browser IP cloaking tool to search Google and then you should see ads as if you are in the US.

[Nacho]

This has definetly been a great post!

Although it has been posted in the "Google > Google Web Search" forum, I think this topic has taken direction of "multilingual search markets". I encourage readers to see message #3 by Barry (rustybrick) from the post "Use of Regionally-Specific Domains (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?p=989#post989)" in our "Multilingual Search Markets & Non-US Engines (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=45)" forum, which was formerly called "Beyond the U.S.".

[Black_Knight]

This all ties into a post I made at another forum earlier today.

Fact is that the US is the most deprived online demographic in the world. The US is the only major country I know of that doesn't have a regional version of Google or Yahoo! to use.

Americans are the only folks I can think of who can't get a search for "Pages only from [my country]" option on Google or Yahoo! Now some of that comes down to the fact that the usage of the .us TLD is somewhat patchy and confusing. In general, Americans regard the generic .com TLD as though they were better than the regional CCTLD of .us.

However, this creates the obvious problem that what the Americans end up with is a generic only service.

www.google.us is registered but just redirects me immediately to the generic, international google.com site.

www.yahoo.us is in even poorer condition, in that it directs me to Yahoo's custom 404 error page.

As an SEO with a lot of international experience, I have always felt deeply sorry for the poor US market and how badly it serves itself.

[AussieWebmaster]

This all ties into a post I made at another forum earlier today.

Fact is that the US is the most deprived online demographic in the world. The US is the only major country I know of that doesn't have a regional version of Google or Yahoo! to use.

Americans are the only folks I can think of who can't get a search for "Pages only from [my country]" option on Google or Yahoo! Now some of that comes down to the fact that the usage of the .us TLD is somewhat patchy and confusing. In general, Americans regard the generic .com TLD as though they were better than the regional CCTLD of .us.

However, this creates the obvious problem that what the Americans end up with is a generic only service.

www.google.us is registered but just redirects me immediately to the generic, international google.com site.

www.yahoo.us is in even poorer condition, in that it directs me to Yahoo's custom 404 error page.

As an SEO with a lot of international experience, I have always felt deeply sorry for the poor US market and how badly it serves itself.

The funny part is most Americans see .com as them and the others as the other parts of the world... egocentric a best.

[Marcia]

This is an older topic, but still just as relevant and important today as it ever was. Have there been any changes, are things still the same?

[egain]

Well the www.yahoo.us still goes to a 404 page.

:D

[JoeySEO]

Yes, google.co.th too.

[John W]

There are so many types of worldwide searches where the country location of the website is irelevant. What about the thousands of international and regional organisations' websites?

Example: The peak international body for harmonising laboratory testing and results is www.ilac.org. The decisions made by this body have all sorts of ramifications for international trade amongst other things.

There are thousands of legitimate links to this web site but it is hosted on a webserver in Australia.

Here is how the site ranks in worldwide pages searches for the word "laboratory" on three different Google properties:

www.google.com.au: www.ilac.org = 5
www.google.com: www.ilac.org = 98
www.google.co.ok: www.ilac.org = 207

Wake up Google! When people select worldwide searches, they mean it.

I'm now using Yahoo and MSN for my worldwide searches.

[CaliforniaGirl]

I just received a call from a client yesterday in relation to this. A very prominent travel related site which has a .com domain was previously hosted in the US. To manage this better they decided to change the host to the companies country of origin (Australia).

As expected the rankings greatly improved in the Google AU engine and I have noted that the content is being served from one of the AU Google datacentres.

Sadly I am witnessing a decline in rankings in the google.com and .co.uk engines.

The problem is the company is not specifically targeting the AU market but a global audience. We are very concerned now as I am slightly unsure how this will play out in the coming weeks.

It seems all of the sites content is now on a AU datacentre, the rankings are slipping in other Google properties and we certainly did not intend for this to happen.

I would appreciate anyone's words of wisdom here and/or further explanations as what to expect.

Thanks in advance,
CaliforniaGirl

[mcanerin]

I just noticed that Google updated my Toolbar. While poking around, I noticed that under the "Buttons" menu they have a "Search USA" button!

Interesting...

Ian

[mcanerin]

I've been poking around a little more. My main site is mcanerin.com, but it's hosted in Canada.

This has never been an issue. However, when I run a search for "mcanerin" using the USA Search, my .com disappears and only my mcanerin.us site appears!

Since up until now the .us TLD has had no effect on rankings or SEO, this is could actually be a major issue for .com sites hosted outside the USA if this functionality moves into the mainstream.

Normal Google Search for "mcanerin":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mcanerin

USA search for "mcanerin":

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-07,GGLD:en&q=mcanerin&meta=cr%3DcountryUS

I guess I'll be buying a few more .us domains... ;)

Ian

[CaliforniaGirl]

So, with that, and continuing from my last post;

Because my client moved a .com host in the US to Australia we can expect:

1. Rankings to improve in regionalised search (which has happened)
2. Rankings to get worse in google.com (which I see happening)

Correct?

So, what then will be the solution? Move hosting back to the US? As stated previously it is a global site and there is greater benefit for us to rank well in the .com than on the .com.au.

CaliGirl

[mcanerin]

Here are the facts:

1. .com is not considered to be US, although there are still some members of the flat-earth society who are hold-outs ;) It's considered to be just "commercial".

2. ccTLD's like .ca, .au and so forth are considered to be regional.

3. Search engines (rightly) feel that relevant results are those that matter to the searcher, which means that if you use google.ca, you would be better served by sites that are considered Canadian than sites that are not. So they give a rankings boost to local sites.

4. Currently, there is no known rankings boost for US sites, though in view of my above posts, that may change in the future.

5. A search engine can easily tell if a site is local if it uses a ccTLD, but if it's a .com or some other gTLD like .net, .org, etc it needs to look at other options.

6. Google looks at IP address and maps it to a country if there is no ccTLD. This is a bad idea, IMO.

7. MSN, Ask and Yahoo all look at links if there is no ccTLD - the assumption is that if lots of Aussies link to you, then you are probably relevant to Aussies. I'm more inclined to agree with this approach, myself.

8. You don't get a penalty for not being US, you just do not have the bonus in the .com version of the engine that you normally see in the regional version.

9. Each web page is assigned one and only one region. It can't be both UK and AU, for example. Technically, you could have 5 pages in one site all regionalized to 5 different countries, but it would be hard to organize and each individual page would still only have one region.

Here are some conclusions/theories/ideas:

1. Up until recently, there was no evidence that the .us ccTLD did a damn thing. The current evidence is still very shaky.

2. There is absolutely no reason you should be seeing a rankings drop for the UK based on an IP move from the US to AU. Therefore, it is a different issue.

3. Since there is no known boost for US sites, there should be no rankings drop on Google.com due to a move to the AU for a .com site. You should simply see a boost in the AU. There is certainly no reason for any change in the UK.

4. I'd be willing to bet that you are seeing a drop in Google as a whole, including AU, but since you are now hosted there, the regional boost is more than making up for it. Kind of a "take away 5 points, add 10" scenario.

5. Google rolled out an algo update recently.

If I were to guess based on what you have told me, I would say that you are having an issue with the new algo tweaks, rather than the IP move.

The only thing you should a see change in relation to the IP move is a boost in rankings on google.com.au. Anything else is an issue with your links or content that Google is looking at as of the new update.

That being the case, moving the hosting back would not solve the issue. I would start looking at duplication issues, and if any of your pages are showing up as Supplemental suddenly.

Ian

[Black_Knight]

If I were to guess based on what you have told me, I would say that you are having an issue with the new algo tweaks, rather than the IP move.

The only thing you should a see change in relation to the IP move is a boost in rankings on google.com.au. Anything else is an issue with your links or content that Google is looking at as of the new update.
I concurr with mcanerin here. I think your decline in the .com and UK is due to a general drop across all of Google, but that the boost effect specific to the AU has countered that drop in the AU and so hidden it.

[fishead]

My wedding photography site viewphotography.com is ranked 1 and 2 under search term wedding photographer sydney and wedding photography sydney.
Up until 2 months ago I was ranked that way under both Search: the web and Search: pages from Australia and had been that way for many years.
I am now not ranked on the first 3 pages under Search: pages from Australia but still ranked as usual under Search: the web.
I am hosted in Australia and IP is documented as such.
My content or links have not changed greatly.
My site is a .com as a lot of my clients come from OS but the majority of my clients are based in Sydney.
Does anyone have any idea of what is going on here ???

[AussieWebmaster]

I concurr with mcanerin here. I think your decline in the .com and UK is due to a general drop across all of Google, but that the boost effect specific to the AU has countered that drop in the AU and so hidden it.

Aamon it is good to see you out communicating with others......

[Carlos Chacón]

Well, to recap a few other key points on being seen regionally specific by Google:

+ Host in a particular country, you'll almost certainly be seen as related to that country. So put your .com or .au site physically in Australia, and you should be seen as Australian

+ Have a country-specific domain. Got .au? Then even if you host in the US, you should still seem like an Australian site to Google. But what if you are an Australian site using .com? Then unfortunately, you're stuck -- the .com part doesn't expressly say Australian, so chances are if you host in the US, you won't be seen as Australian.

+ Write in a country-specific language. Write in French, you may be seen as a French-based site, maybe. You'll definitely be seen as a French-language site.

+ Links. If you have many links from major country-specific sites, then that might help you seem related. IE, get sites that are known to be seen as Australian to link to your site, and it might be seen as Australian.
Good points Mr. Sullivan, thanks.
What I do believe is that Google will pull up their “local search” little by little. One day the results on any query will be local instead of worldwide.
SEO people –like me- should be taking action on this in order to don’t miss the chance of the new things happening.

[therapists]

I am having a similar problem in the UK. We have a .com site which appears very well in the pages from the web section, but choose pages from the uk for the same key phrase the listings have disapeared. The site is sinks-taps.com key phrase kitchen sinks

One thing we have noticed is the homepage keeps being lost from the listings on the UK (doing a site: domain to find the pages which are listed) - does anyone know why the homepage only might be removed from the listings on a regular basis?

[DigiVista]

I thought I'd mention an interesting observation I've made regarding search on Aussie google.com.au ...
For the search of "digital photo frame", the top 10 results are almost identical, whether or not you click "Pages from Australia" or not.
Also, when searching "the web", google reports there are 15 million page results as opposed to 410,000 for "Pages from Australia", but obviously the Aussie ones are automatically being ranked higher due to being local.

Search "digital photo frame" on google.com.au (the web) (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=digital+photo+frame&btnG=Google+Search&meta=)

Search "digital photo frame" on google.com.au (pages from Australia) (http://www.google.com.au/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=digital+photo+frame&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU=)

Don't know if this is a common occurance for other search terms? From my past experience I always expected "pages from Australia" to be significantly different for the top 10...

[Chris_D]

Hi Digivista

If you try the same search at Google.com http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=digital+photo+frame you'll see that "Australian" pages get a "lift" for all searches at google.com.au when you search the web.

Selecting "pages from Australia" just takes out non Australian results

best

Chris

[Marval]

Im glad I found this topic as Ive noticed in the last two months a radical change in the algo that is baffling me
To preface - I do host in the US, my DNS resolves to the US and it is a dedicated server on very-much US run systems.
I also have very few links from other countries (an occasional one or two out of thousands of incoming organic links) and the site has been this way for at least 6 years.
I took a big dump in the SERPs back on Aug 16th last year - still havent figured out why but that is a different topic (I think)
Starting about two months ago I noticed that some of the key phrases I still ranked #1 for started falling away but I still saw referrals in my logs - from Aus, New Zeal and India to name a few - I started checking and sure enough I still had the # 1 spot for those phrases when I searched the .com.au or .co.in etc - without filtering for Aussie only pages
(added - I am searching from a Bellsouth router in the US)

I then compared the results to the "US" results and every one was the same in the top 10 except for my site - everything just shifted up one - and did check to make sure the &filter wasnt being applied.

I checked the rest of the US results and the site wasnt showing anywhere for those phrases - but it sure does in every other English speaking country for those same phrases

I do provide a sitemap to Google that gets botted correctly every night and the webmaster tools does show those phrases in the listings of searched phrases as expected - and no errors returned by them - this really has me pulling out my hair as Ive done verything I can think of to make sure it wasnt something on my end - even a complete validation to ensure I wasnt messing up something - but it brings up a point of:
Is it possible that a country filter would be applied incorrectly (I dont think its a penalty of any type that I can see as Ive never done anything out of the ordinary and always been ranked in the top 10 of my type site authority wise) or am I just missing something here?

Any help would be very much appreciated

[seoimage]

I have seen this before, I believe it is related to a theory that Google is trying to find non-us companies hosted in the US who are trying to gain a presence in the US, so they are trying to filter them out. I also believe that this may be such a small margin for error that the few sites that get filtered out are most likely gone forever.

I have not found a fix yet after trying everything.

Generally the factors for ranking in another country when hosted in the US on a .com domain include:

-Country Specific TLD (.region) redirecting to the .com
-Copies of the content by region
-Links to your site from the region
-Linking out to regionally located sites
-Second Business Address in the region
-Content related by topic
-Content related by having the country name in the content
-Head Data having keywords relative to the region
-Whois address in the region

I'm sure there are a few more, but the above generally weigh heavier on regional ranking for sites.

If there is a country filter that is moving sites and causing them to rank well in the wrong country, then getting around this may be extremely difficult if not next to impossible without a good connection in Google.

The possibilities here are small but endless....

[Marval]

I totally agree that those factors are what helps when you want to rank well in a given country/region - however not a single one of them is true in the case of this site :)
Its weird as Ive looked at everything possible to try to find something that would cause it - Im linked by 1 (out of 16000 links) site in Aus, none that Im aware of in India and maybe 1 or 2 in the UK - yet Im ranking great in those results
I verified that my server is still in the NAPs of America in Miami with a reverse and traceroute check showing cogent in Wash DC as the main provider, my domain address is my real home in Mississippi, my registrar is still in New Orleans as they were the whole time during Katrina, and even the language meta on my pages is set to en-us

The funny part about it is that this only effects major 2 word phrase placement - that I used to be #1 for across all of the datacenters(well at least for 5 years) and for the last few months no where to be found
All of the rest of the "lower traffic" 2 word and many 3 and up I still rank with no problems - for thousands of phrases in the US and around the world - with just as much competitive results just lower traffic - Im about ready to give up - but then I had a friend that had exactly the same problem for 18 months - then I noticed that Matt Cutts mentioned his site as one he remembered from a long time ago during one of his blog entries - and magically my friends site reappeared about 2 weeks later :)

[AussieWebmaster]

I totally agree that those factors are what helps when you want to rank well in a given country/region - however not a single one of them is true in the case of this site :)
Its weird as Ive looked at everything possible to try to find something that would cause it - Im linked by 1 (out of 16000 links) site in Aus, none that Im aware of in India and maybe 1 or 2 in the UK - yet Im ranking great in those results
I verified that my server is still in the NAPs of America in Miami with a reverse and traceroute check showing cogent in Wash DC as the main provider, my domain address is my real home in Mississippi, my registrar is still in New Orleans as they were the whole time during Katrina, and even the language meta on my pages is set to en-us

The funny part about it is that this only effects major 2 word phrase placement - that I used to be #1 for across all of the datacenters(well at least for 5 years) and for the last few months no where to be found
All of the rest of the "lower traffic" 2 word and many 3 and up I still rank with no problems - for thousands of phrases in the US and around the world - with just as much competitive results just lower traffic - Im about ready to give up - but then I had a friend that had exactly the same problem for 18 months - then I noticed that Matt Cutts mentioned his site as one he remembered from a long time ago during one of his blog entries - and magically my friends site reappeared about 2 weeks later :)

It could be that others are just doing everything in a way that hinders them in other countries and you are not....

[Marval]

Hmmm - that doesnt make any sense since the same sites are in the top 10 in the US as in the other countries - except that my site doesnt show in the US index whatsoever for those phrases - not buried - I mean not there at all

[AussieWebmaster]

Hmmm - that doesnt make any sense since the same sites are in the top 10 in the US as in the other countries - except that my site doesnt show in the US index whatsoever for those phrases - not buried - I mean not there at all

send me a pm with all your info and I will get Matt Cutts or Vanessa Fox to look at it during SES

[Marval]

thanks - but I figured it out - the site Im talking about is a rather large and old free site - although there was a little advertising here and there not really a commercial enterprise.
When it tanked back in Aug last year (I believe the date was the 16th) I set up an ad in AdWords advertising to some of the English speaking countries to try to keep the traffic moving along - with around 400 cheap keywords - nothing commercial
I have since shut down that advertising as it was kind of useless - but note now that the English speaking countries that I am still ranking in are the ones that I Did Not advertise in - all of the ones that I did run the ads for are the ones where I have dropped out - so now I know the cause

[Marval]

So this morning Im reading Matt Cutts' blog and he specifically states that my assertion is basically unfounded regarding the AdWords angle - so I guess I'm back to square 1.

I went back and checked a fresh set of logs - and sure enough, the phrase I've been looking at is still getting the #1 spot in Aust and a few other hl=en indexes - but looking in the US index - I finally found my listing at the 363rd position :) for that phrase

Thinking about some history - I never really did any "pushing" of particular phrases or words - given that my site ranked in the top 10 for the "most searched word on the net" back in 2001-2004 until that word was censored for the US results - and this phrase is a combo of that word and "adjectives" - my linking text from other sites as well as my little navigational phrase to return to the home page had this phrase in it - mostly just because of the branding phrase that I started with early on

I did notice one other added attribute that I hadnt really paid attention to before - that is that just about any other phrase that was two words where the pair was an adjective/descriptor combined with that one little word were also gone out of the results - again things I had ranked for years at #1 for - so I assume it has something to do with the word itself??

Looking though I have to give Google a thumbs up - I noticed that a friend of mine that had been missing from the index for over a year is finally back - I saw that even Matt had mentioned his site recently in an interview about our "side of the web" and had pondered whether Google might notice that he was absent from the results :)
Also noted that all of the college message board spam is slowly being cut down - it only averages three of the top 10 results now which is a huge improvement so hopefully it is finally getting some well-deserved attention

Overall - I hate changing stuff to try to rank better as I've always tried to not do that - I guess something I've dont over the years has caused some sort of country specific or language specific filtering - it's just hard for me to justify changing pages to overcome a filter or algorithm when I preach to everyone else that asks - build pages for your surfers and not the search engines :)

[Poonam]

I have noticed the same thing before as when i search for my sites in google in US my site is on third page but when i serach in UK it is lost somewhere.

[idansh]

great info thanks

[beu]

Marissa Mayer talked about this topic during "Searchology". She used a company owned by Kraft as her example.

The videos are webcast here:
google.com/press/podium.html

[Jessica Harris]

Is there a way to optimize your (American) website so that it will rank highly on the international searches such as google.uk? I know that relevent content is, of course, the most important feature. However, is it beneficial in terms of search engine rankings to use keywords in other languages? For example, if the article is about a company in France, will it be more easily accessed by google.fr if there are French meta keywords?

Thank you,
Jessica

[Black_Knight]

For US and other international businesses wanting to attract users from other countries, you'll need to buy and use the international domains, even if hosted with your American hosting company. For most countries, you'll need a physical office address in the relevant country, which means you'll need some form of local partner in those countries.

You'll also need to localise the content, as the copy that sells well in the US often serves poorly in other counties and cultures. Obviously, if you hope to sell to a country where US English is not the primary language, then you'll need to have your content translated, preferably by a native speaker of the language so that the right phrases and idioms of the language are used, (you don't want your website being the next "All your base are belong to us").

Most importantly of all, understand that keywords vary greatly with even countries (and regions) that share the same language. A lot of US realtors lose out completely on international buyers by failing to understand that even those who speak English do not search for Realty outside the US. We might buy 'real estate' in the UK, but mostly we look for property, houses, and flats (not realty, condos, apartments, etc). Travel agents in the US mostly miss UK buyers by forgetting that the Brits say Holiday, not Vacation, etc.

[AussieWebmaster]

For US and other international businesses wanting to attract users from other countries, you'll need to buy and use the international domains, even if hosted with your American hosting company. For most countries, you'll need a physical office address in the relevant country, which means you'll need some form of local partner in those countries.

You'll also need to localise the content, as the copy that sells well in the US often serves poorly in other counties and cultures. Obviously, if you hope to sell to a country where US English is not the primary language, then you'll need to have your content translated, preferably by a native speaker of the language so that the right phrases and idioms of the language are used, (you don't want your website being the next "All your base are belong to us").

Most importantly of all, understand that keywords vary greatly with even countries (and regions) that share the same language. A lot of US realtors lose out completely on international buyers by failing to understand that even those who speak English do not search for Realty outside the US. We might buy 'real estate' in the UK, but mostly we look for property, houses, and flats (not realty, condos, apartments, etc). Travel agents in the US mostly miss UK buyers by forgetting that the Brits say Holiday, not Vacation, etc.

Yeah there is nothing like optimising for keywords no one searches for....

[Carlos Chacón]

... However, is it beneficial in terms of search engine rankings to use keywords in other languages? For example, if the article is about a company in France, will it be more easily accessed by google.fr if there are French meta keywords?

Thank you,
Jessica
Short Answer is: Yes. On my own experience, there are many ways to improve local visibility on the SEPR's like:
-Domain name
-Hosting
-Content
-Links

So, translate your content if need too.

[AussieWebmaster]

Short Answer is: Yes. On my own experience, there are many ways to improve local visibility on the SEPR's like:
-Domain name
-Hosting
-Content
-Links

So, translate your content if need too.

This is a topic that has been well discussed and all the factors you mention are part of what is needed.

Translation is critical too.... it should be written for the audience in their idiom.

[strategicrankings]

I had the same problem as described above.
my domain is a dot com and i'm targeting the US market, im based in a country where my website ranks in top 5 for a very competitive web design related keyword with more than 1 billion results on the country version of google and i'm nowhere to be found in google.com

The explanation given by seoimage above seems the most possible to me and the only variable that could be preventing my site to rank for the same keywords on google.com was the physical address in the whois record BUT no the domain name is privately registered and the physical address is not publicly available. So there must another variable that is not satisfying google or maybe they have access to the domain owner's whois physical address which i doubt.

[darsh39]

There are two different choices regional or web ... well i prefer web because it shows more pages.

[hellai]

hi,
i am writing my diploma at my university how SEs are creating different information in different countrys.

i read the whole forum now, but i am still not sure how google is working with this regional mode...

my two search terms are: migration refugee

from austria i have the same results for google.fr google.sn google.com


can somebody of amerika or somewhere else to me the favor to save google result (the first 30 pages) with the two search words "migration refugee" (without ""!) and send it to my adress: godard1976@gmx.at

you can save it in txt or however you want....

then i would be able to recognize if there are different results in the states than in europa,

thanks in advance
heli

[jenny999]

Well does not happen only in Google it happens in all search engines for eg google .uk results are different from google.co.au.

[khurram]

Hi And Whats Going On.

[JeremyWeb[b]]

I'd not worry too much about what Google URL you use, as I think Google uses IP geolocation as part of the decision what to show you.

You can force the issue somewhat however by adding gl=[COUNTRY CODE] to your google URL.

We have a client who sells hypnosis MP3s online. He used to sell a lot in the UK and USA, but recently USA sales have dropped off.

If you look at:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=stop+smoking+cd&meta=&gl=uk

and

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=stop+smoking+cd&meta=&gl=us

(and assuming you see the same thing I do) you can see why.

Regards,

Jeremy.

[Reflection]

This is because Google.com shows the result of USA and the region of your search. When you specify a location it gives results from that particular region only.

When you searching at london it will show uk google database results.

[AnneHaynes]

This has been happening for some time. When I worked at SEOINC we optimized a comfort shoe store. After the Florida update, the client was so freeked out that he called from Canada everyday and we would search on the same term. The results varied regularly.

[AussieWebmaster]

Thus you work for country as well as terms.... subdomains in languages, sister sites for specific countries with right domain extension, hosting and language etc. help get more traffic to your company as opposed to just one domain

[Reflection]

As Google search results depend on various various factors like hosting, languages and extentions.

[govindseo]

yaa, it's interesting post i have also seen this.

[ok0510]

[QUOTE=dannysullivan;419]Honestly don't know for certain. My impression would be that they'd favor sites that are hosted in Germany/seen as German based. Most of those are likely written in Germany, of course.

I can see it both ways. Many people may simply not make use of the country filter option -- some might not even notice it. So having a mild default tweak to favor sites from a particular country has some advantages, even if you are doing a "entire web" search.

However, my preference would be for this not to happen. That's especially so if someone has explictly chosen to visit Google.com. If you use that site, you ought to be able to see exactly what anyone else would see.

FYI, Yahoo seems to be doing the same thing but even more radically, for when you search at Yahoo.com outside the US. It's on my follow-up list.



Well, to recap a few other key points on being seen regionally specific by Google:

+ Host in a particular country, you'll almost certainly be seen as related to that country. So put your .com or .au site physically in Australia, and you should be seen as Australian

+ Have a country-specific domain. Got .au? Then even if you host in the US, you should still seem like an Australian site to Google. But what if you are an Australian site using .com? Then unfortunately, you're stuck -- the .com part doesn't expressly say Australian, so chances are if you host in the US, you won't be seen as Australian.

+ Write in a country-specific language. Write in French, you may be seen as a French-based site, maybe. You'll definitely be seen as a French-language site.

+ Links. If you have many links from major country-specific sites, then that might help you seem related. IE, get sites that are known to be seen as Australian to link to your site, and it might be seen as Australian

A good day!!!!

[Reflection]

Back links also affect Google results.

[Joanne]

Why I don't see people talking about the semantic part of search engines, their 'human'-like part?

Since the major search engines started to use semantic techniques to determinate the ranking positions, there are few tricky stuff which apply to different country search results.

I will gladly explain most of the theory, however since you are only interested in this particularly, I will only explain this. Take a look for example the word "football", take a note that my example is very general but you can address it to any other case.

So, searching football in UK will probably give results like Chelsea, Manchester, FIFA, UEFA, Championship League and so on. Meanwhile, if you search it in USA, you will probably end with the most famous american footbal teams (I think also know as rugby), which is totally different from the european football. Why?

Google is using this new semantic techniques, based on old LSI patents, modified and used under a new name - Latent Semantic Optimization or LSO. The very base thing is quite interresting even for a non-seo guy. It's about the relations your brain builds since you are a kid for different sort of things, you do this all your life and its very affected by your environment.

The same technique is applied to search engine results, it can't be explained in the scope of this post, however I think you get what I mean. Diferrent words lead to different associations in different coultures, thats something so natural and yet so simple. By making the search engines have this piece of artificial intelligence, we will get much better and correct results depending on where are who we are.

[experienceadvertising]

This is very interesting...this is also an issue with affiliate marketing and encouraging international affiliates to promote US merchants and vise versa. Thanks for the info.

[Reflection]

Thanks Joanne for your nice tips about Latent sementic Indexing (LSI).
Can you explain me briefly about/techniques of Latent Semantic Optimization or LSO ?

[Joanne]

Very briefly, in order to determine if the content (for a specific site) is on topic for some search term, a major search engine would use modifications of the above mentioned models (LSI and LSA). That way, it will be defined how the "ideal" content for a certain search term should look like, and rank the page according to the matching of this page with the ideal content (ContentDNA).

By using the LSO model, you can approximate that ideal content, and include part of it in your articles etc.

Model based on LSA is used to extract ideal content. You can read more abot LSA basics by asking our shared friend - Google. However, LSA is somehow limited, cause by using it a search engine would be able only to measure relations of type searchterm - single words, and meanwhile our brain is not based on a one-to-one relation of single words. It's more like a spider web, with words at the points where the threads join. That's why search engines evolved both LSI and LSO to a new stage, so it can closely match our brains.

[Misscj]

Semantics in IR have been used for a really long time. LSI is a bit differnt to that. Semantic techniques often rely on ontologies, semantic trees, machine readable dictionaries like WordNet get used a lot as well. It's possible to automate the technique when you've got the technology and huge data set that Google have. LSI and LSA to my knowledge are the same thing. Vectorial semantics can equally be used for relevancy ranking.

The spider web analogy is good, it's just like that in semantic nets. It doesn't look as pretty though :)

How the brain works is another matter entirely imho. Lakoff has done a lot of work on this as well as Fauconnier, and many others. Those working with generative grammars can arguably also be said to work in this, although not everyone agrees with Chomsky. Basically nobody agrees how the brain processes language or the world around it right now. If we can get a computational model working we might be able to experiment more, thus really tapping into A.I rather than IR and NLP alone. The A.I we use at the moment is quite limited compared the theories we have.

I don't believe that any search engine is "matching our brain" as yet. That would be quite a revolution in science, and requires an awful lot more than semantics alone.

I'd like to hear more about LSO though!

cj :)

[Reflection]

Yes, google provides additional sites of different regions for a particular region search.

I think this is possible due to its LSI algorithm.
It shows relevent keyword search of different regions.

[ashishkhajuria]

Thats interesting thanks for the information.

[Reflection]

Another possible cause may be the hosted domain server.

[allenz]

Hi,
Sound interesting!
I think the results are never wildly different, but it's definitely part of their algorithms........... :)

[AussieWebmaster]

If you are working for it then you need to use local hosting, country domain and be specific on page with content

[eposdirect]

yes, i m also this problem facing now

[v9designbuild]

It gets even worse. I run a web design agency in Bangkok and find that even from the same IP address, the results returned are different on IE, Firefox and Chrome. I have asked around the forums for some kind of explanation and even the most erudite cannot determine the reason for it.

I accept google.co.th, .com and .uk are from different datacenters, but browsers?

[AussieWebmaster]

It gets even worse. I run a web design agency in Bangkok and find that even from the same IP address, the results returned are different on IE, Firefox and Chrome. I have asked around the forums for some kind of explanation and even the most erudite cannot determine the reason for it.

I accept google.co.th, .com and .uk are from different datacenters, but browsers?

yeah they recognize the different browsers coming in and assign to various databases... guess it gives them separation for all sorts of recording of data... and use the info to sort results slightly differently based on what they see as that browsers/IP etc.'s main interests and potential conversions etc.

[jag]

To be simple, have you confirmed that browser showed results based on Google.co.th or Google.com sometimes it get re-directed :) and in other ways it depends on web user agents range from web browsers to search engine crawlers that leads to different search results and hope there wont be much difference in results

I run a web design agency in Bangkok and find that even from the same IP address, the results returned are different on IE, Firefox and Chrome.

Best,

[Reflection]

If browsers showing different result, then the above three browsers may be specified for different locations refering to different Google databases at time of down loading.

[R1ch]

This is a good option for search users but it shouldn't be forced upon people who want to search the whole web.

Rich

[Reflection]

I think the result in web search may not deviate frequently. There may be some other factors like huge compitaion and latest modifications cause the differ in the search result of Google.

[KSew]

Cant believe this 2004 thread still active.

[jag]

The topic is still hot. You can add your views along with comments.

Best,

[TheBizTechGuy]

This stuff is old news, but still interesting. This is useful because different cultures would expect different search results. For example, if you did a search in the US for "football", you would expect your search result to be related to the NFL. If you were to do the same search outside of the US, then you would expect your search to be soccer related.

[Reflection]

This thread is still active.
From 2004 to 2009 there are so many changes have been occured in the web world.
But the topic is about regional Google search other information related to Google that's why it is active till now.

[DUPoetry]

Interesting thread. For some results regional differences make sense, like shopping and events, but it makes things a little more challenging for websites outside of the US which have international appeal.