Changed Algo for Non (com,org,net)?

[SEOmariachi]

Guys,
On two of my main one word terms I have noticed a HUGE influx of foreign (.de,.uk,.ce) results in the serps. I have always seen a few but now it is literally 40 - 50% of the results. Anyone else noticed this a trend like this in there terms?

-"Oleee!"
SEOMariachi

[2_much]

I saw this a while back, but not lately. I guess it depends on your SERP's. Are the results relevant?

[rfgdxm1]

Googleguy has stated Google doesn't discriminate based on TLD. Which makes good sense. Are these sites very spammy?

[2_much]

What I saw in some competitive affiliate serps is what looked like a deliberate introduction of non-english content. Or somehow there was a tweak in the algo for those terms so that other sites would rank. The only other option is that everythign else in English was penalized, so other languages and TLD's was all that was left.

I take what GG says with a grain of salt, ultimately, I trust my observations.

[heini]

>Google doesn't discriminate based on TLD
Which is probably only partly true. In other words: It's true if you disregard the hidden geo targeting Google is experimenting with for several months.

The main Google index, which we see on Google.com, of course doesn't discriminate between docs running under TLDs - and why should it? Google indexes the worldwideweb, they don't care for TLDs.
Ranking of docs is based on the whole plethora of factors we are discussing regularly: links, linktext, links, linktext...a bit of onpage factors. No TLDs involved.
In that process it's totally obvious that serps contain docs from all kinds of TLDs.

Only after this regular ranking process filters get applied, which produce serps returned when users set filters, like language or country filters.

But...there's the growing quest for geo-targeting. Orignally this quest has to do with the ability to deliver ads to specific target groups.
Second it has to do with political issues. Not all results are suitable for all countries. Similar not all related news or special searches, like telephone numbers, are suitable worldwide.
Third many commercial listings are not relevant worldwide.

So Google has started implementing geo-targeting. It looks like that is still pretty shaky and experimental.
We have however seen several instances of people, mostly from the US, complaining about sudden flooding of serps with results from sites running under ccTLDs.

I wonder if this is either the result of a geo-targeting filter not (yet) applied, or gone wrong.

[rfgdxm1]

I have to concede that heini has a point about that hidden geo targeting. I managed to discover this was going on, quite by accident, a while back. Thus it is quite possible for someone to see these experimental Google SERPs in the wild.