Google Uk filter stats

[tigger]

Anyone got any figures on how many people in the Uk click on the UK filter when searching using G.co.uk?

I'm working on a site that is ranking well on com &. co.uk but when the filter is used it's nowhere to be found, the site is on a .com domain

[ncsuk]

I only have my sites stats to go about on this so I cant say but I would be interested to know.

[Alec Doggone]

Not too long ago, I held no. 1 position in Google.co.uk (with filter) for a very popular search term. I received less than 10 hits the entire month. So, I don't think many people filter the resukts...

[tigger]

maybe I'll have to get this info the old fashion way and ask friends if they use the uk filter

[vitaplease]

Results from France:

[webmasterworld.com...]

I won't comment on possible nationalistic differences.

[wruk999]

tigger,

Here is a thread from ages ago - I would say that the figures wont have changed dramatically.

Google - pages from the UK [webmasterworld.com]

wruk999

[tigger]

cheers gents

4eyes came up with an option from the other posting

"I'd host the .co.uk in its own right and create a robots.txt exclusion for Googlebot on the .com.

You would then need to get any incoming links for the .com changed to .the .co.uk. "

This would seem the best route if I want to get found when people use the UK filter, pain or what if I use this I've got loads of sites to contact and ask the link to changed over to .co.uk :(

[wruk999]

tigger,

Not sure but wouldn't a 301 Moved redirect from the .com to .co.uk mean that the incoming links to the .com would automatically be transferred to the .co.uk from the .com by Googlebot?

wruk999

[tigger]

Pass anyone else?

[4eyes]

I agree with 4Eyes;)

[tigger]

any ideas on what wruk999 is saying?

[wruk999]

any ideas on what wruk999 is saying?

Absolutely none ;)

I was trying to say that if you use a 301 redirect from the .com to the .co.uk, I think that Google realises you just want to use the one domain, and so PageRank and ultimately backlinks are "shared" between the two/passed to the one domain (the .co.uk).

I am pretty sure this is the case, as I have read it round here somewhere...

wruk999

[zeus]

Well I do have another site with .de and I do get alot of hits with filter, but I think it harder with a co.uk because of the language, but if people want to but something in England they will mostly use filter.

zeus

[tigger]

cheers wruk999

I've hunted around the forum but can't find anything, I don't have any problems in doing this its just I've paid for some directory listings and I've got over 100 links from high PR sites pointing to the site that were a real pain setting up, explaining why I wanted keyword anchor links etc etc

I've got the. co.uk domain I just don't want to upset G

[glengara]

In this thread from 2002, [webmasterworld.com...] in the last post Ciml says ".... but I would stick to their advice and use a 301 redirect. This should allow your main URL to get the PageRank from links to both URLs so in the case of switching to a new domain it's much better than using robots.txt"

[tigger]

Hi Glen

That link is coming back with a 404

[lazerzubb]

404 = [webmasterworld.com...]

[glengara]

Sorry guys, that's a thread I'd saved, should have checked it was still working.
Maybe Ciml will pick up on this.

[glengara]

Dupe content.

[ciml]

I don't have access to my logs at the moment, so I can't update the breakdown I made before. (Anyone else who hosts multiple domains willing to check their aggregate logs?) Certainly, I consider the traffic from Google's UK pages search valuable for some types of Web sites.

Firstly, I would check the IP for the .com domain. You can use alltheweb.com to see if other domains on the same server are in Google's UK pages search. If you find a few on the Web search but not the 'pages from the UK' search then it's a problem.

If so, then you can either switch hosting provider to get an IP that Google treat as being in the UK, or if you choose to switch to a .co.uk then I would use 301 redirection from the .com. There's always a risk (such as Google changing behaviour), but 301 redirection is probably the least problematic and the most likely to preserve PR.