Geographical Google results

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Geographical Google results

twilight47

5:28 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Are Google SERPs geared at all toward the physical region of the server of the user? I've noticed results that are geographically closer to myself frequently. Is this just coincidence?

heini

5:38 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

twilight, could you expand on that a little?
To my knowledge Google does some IP filtering, but rather on a country basis.

HitProf

5:44 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Google does sometimes display different results depending on which version you use. I think it's ccTLD based.

heini

5:48 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

>depending on which version
I assume you are referring to local Google sites?

>ccTLD
Interesting theory, cannot say I have found any confirmation for that though.

twilight47

5:59 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I am from Oregon and I have found a preponderance of high results from Oregon and Portland. Seems odd.

HitProf

7:16 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Heini, just today I found different results between Google.nl and other 'versions' like the Toolbar in IE and the search box in Opera. Both gave the same result as Google.com.

This was a search for something I was looking for, no optimisation involved in this area. Google.nl puts a Dutch .org site on top, the others have it on #3. No need to say I used the global search function and not the local.

HitProf

7:18 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Twilight, do you have a Toolbar installed to compare results? Or use Opera? Or simply try some of the ccTLD-versions.

twilight47

9:21 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I use toolbar.

heini

9:31 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks, Hitprof.
You know, I've been watching that for several months now, and after discussing this extensively with some of the experts (geotargeting might be a keyword to pull up some threads) we agreed to have no idea :)

The problem was the differences between serps on local Google sites to the main site were weird, no recognizable pattern. No preference for local results.
So perhaps they have that changed now.

HitProf

10:38 am on Apr 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

Heini,
> we agreed to have no idea

You make my day :)

Now that the true experts admit that, I dare to join. I'm so glad I 'm not the only one that doesn't really understand :)

In fact the geo-algo may be a lot more complex. Last month I tested another search with an anonymizer to compare results and they too were different between 'versions'.

Just 2 things I'm sure of: it's not IP-based and the ccTLD is involved.