fliks - 2:32 pm on May 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

takagi pointed out a very helpful hint that needs further explanation:

To get listed on the SERPs for "2. Seiten auf Deutsch (pages in the German language)" it's alright if your pages are on german-languaged and google will take care that you get properly listed.

To get listed on the SERPs for "3. Seiten aus Deutschland (pages from Germany)" is a much more difficult job. The language of the site DOES NOT MATTER in that case - it's only relevant if your content is hosted on a .de domain or - in case of a generic domain (.com/.org/.info/.net/.biz) if this domain is hosted in an ip-space assigned to a german provider. If your content is on any country-domain like .co.uk, .cc, .at it's absolutely impossible to get ranked at all.

You're only able to register .de domains when the administrative contact for this domain has a german postal adress.

I don't really see the need for this search-option but there's quite alot of traffic coming to sites that are only ranked well with the "pages from Germany" option enabled.

This has two reasons:
- Users that don't understand what the third option means.
- Sites using Googles data with the "pages from Germany" option as default. A prominent example is www.aol.de where the users only have the choice between "worldwide search" and "pages from Germany" and language isn't an available option.