Getting into Google country results

how do I get my site listed as "in Belgium"?

[mincklerstraat]

Our church's site is in a .net domain (watercourse.net -- nothing to see there, we're in a directory off of it) and this domain who-is's to an address in Belgium. We're about #9 for "church belgium" in a normal Google church (a highish PR5 I believe), but don't show up anywhere for searches refined to Belgium. Is there any way of getting in the "in Belgium" results? We don't have any pages in Flemmish yet but I suppose that will come soon.

This info will also be handy for another site I'm planning since it will likely be primarily Belgian-oriented but not under .be (I've noted that .be sites tend, for some unexplained reason, to have lower PR).

[takagi]

Hi mincklerstraat, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

> ... searches refined to Belgium.
It looks your page is in English. There are officially 3 languages in Belgium, and English is not one of them (Dutch, French and German are).

So why would Google see the pages of this site as you as "pages from Belgium"?

<edit>First didn't see you are new here. Sorry for not saying welcome to you.</edit>

[edited by: takagi at 6:59 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2003]

[Fiver]

best to look in the Euro search engines dept, but a quick list for being recognized as country local for google includes:

local language
local TLD
local hosting

[mincklerstraat]

Thanks, Takagi.
Yes, we need a page in Dutch ASAP. The church is in Belgium and we're primarily an English-speaking bunch, so I'd guess this would be a reason for at least appearing up in search results -- there are expatriate sites in English with .com showing up in the "for Belgium" results.
Fiver: what is TLD?

[Namaste]

how do you get into the country results...I just searched for my products in google.co.uk under UK results only and I'm nowhere!

I noticed that most of the sites were .co.uk domain and some sites that were .com domain but had the words UK sprayed all over the page....but what perplexed m was the inclusion of some sites that had none of these, were regular .com domains...infact one is listed in the Google directory under Widgets>Bulgaria!

So how does it work?

[Fiver]

TLD = Top Level Domain

as in the country code specific url ending, .co.uk, or dot ca for canada, etc.

namaste, three main variables:
local language
local TLD
local hosting

and some believe: local linking.

a decent discussion on the matter took place here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Namaste]

just read that discussion...
but it dosen't explain the results I am seeing in the UK search of google...there are top 10 sites that are getting no benefit from:
local language (it's all english)
local TLD (they are .com )
local hosting (hosted in the US)
categorisation in ODP (not listed under UK anywhere)

[hetzeld]

mincklerstraat,

Google checks the host IP to figure out the geographical location... but this doesn't always work as expected.

If you want your site to appear in the "belgium only" results, it should be hosted in Belgium, independently of the TLD (.be, .net, .com, .org...)

For your future site, search for "hosting" or the french/dutch translation and limit your search to belgian sites. This should show you which hosting company will be best for you.

Dan

[mincklerstraat]

Thanks all. Yes, another host is probably the way to go then, which I'll keep in mind for the next site.

[Fiver]

Namaste

I agree, there are a lot of inconsistencies, but we have nothing else to go on. If you're asking 'how do i get my site listed there' then that’s how, if you're asking 'how do you explain these exceptions' then I can't, but also wouldn't really consider it worth pursuing.

Google has a lot of work to do in this area if you ask me. Some top results at google.de's "search within germany" are english .com sites hosted in the UK, nameservers in the UK, and all english linking.