Forum Moderators: open
For one search phrase I see .uk "the web" & .com returning the same page 1 results (uk & international sites) but different from .uk "pages from the UK" and with another phrase all page 1 results are the same (uk sites only - there used to be intl. sites too).
Yet, search on google.co.uk (pages from UK) and we are nowhere (same results for all web on .uk as .com).
We are now setting up mirrors all over the world to catch international searchers... its a right pain!
Seems you've got to either have an international domain and/or internationally hosted site (pref. both)