Forum Moderators: open
currently my site has pages index on google.com but does not show up for www.google.co.au when searching option:- pages from Australia.
Getting a domain to show up in a country-specific Google search is mostly related to two things: if the domain is hosted in that country, and if the domain is the country-specific TLD. So in your specific case, hosting in Australia and owning a .com.au domain are the two most important factors.
Google makes these decisions by algorithm - so there's no direct way for you to add your site, like submitting it somewhere.
I had always assumed they would, but am having some issues getting our regional TLD to show local results
Back in 2003 it was suggested by local Google Australia staff that having your site listed in an Australian Category within DMOZ was a third way if getting your site tagged as Australian, however this seems now to be not the case. Given though the importance placed on links from major directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo, it would seem sensible for all local search engines to again use these directory categories as indicators of Australian content.
Onya
Woz
There's no doubt that 'pages from' means just that; a site without local hosting or local tld has zero chance.
Is there any 'content' issue?
With regards to why our site's don't rank in AU, I raised a new thread on multiple domain / multiple TLD's / at [webmasterworld.com...] on the "do's and don'ts" of listing with multiple same branded sites.
Hopefully, I'll learn something new which we haven't covered.
I have a .com that I used to host in Canada (with a friend) that then appeared in google.ca, 'Pages from Canada'. When I moved the hosting to Australia it appeared in google.com.au, 'pages from Australia' within a fortnight.
I've also heard that significant backlinks from .au sites (and I assume for Google this means pages that appear in google.com.au, 'Pages from Australia') also appear in the local results, but have never tested it myself.
[1] because I am cheap and hosting here is dear, although nowhere near as bad as it used to be
The other ideas about focused directory listings and links from other recognized local sites can only serve to reinforce the local relevance of your site to Google, and other engines.
I've also heard that significant backlinks from .au sites (and I assume for Google this means pages that appear in google.com.au, 'Pages from Australia') also appear in the local results, but have never tested it myself.
I haven't seen any evidence of this with the content on our sites appearing on other regional serps. We do have a lot of multi regional IBL's to test this.
Sometimes the referring links may be surrounded with text which get's indexed and may then appear on the referring link's TLD. That's about as close it gets.
