Crazy result on .co.uk

Uk sites not showing

[tigger]

Is Google.co.uk broke LOL OK I thought I'd start with that as something just inst making any sense to me

My site was ranking well for a competitive single keyword and was showing in the top 3 using .co.uk results and top 20 in .com so I was more than happy - but a few weeks back I lost that keyword but held onto many other so I was happy with that

But

something I'm now seeing is that keyword is ranking well on every worldwide DC like .fi/ca/gr in fact the lot but is ranking 44th on co.uk!

Its hosted in the UK, registered in the UK and to be the best of my knowledge most of the links are from UK sites! so I'm at a loss as to why all the other worldwide DCs will rank it well but nothing from UK

anyone got any ideas?

[tigger]

anyone got any views on this? just noticed that I'm now 4th on G.russia and still buried down at 40th on com/ co.uk

[trinorthlighting]

Is there a possible data center down with the .uk results? Compare the cache dates.

[tigger]

its been like this for 4 weeks - can't see it being a DC down -

thanks for the feedback

[rainborick]

This sounds like a geo-location issue. Google was having a problem in late January and early February correctly identifying .com domains as being located within the UK. If your domain name ends in .com and your site is hosted on a server that is physically located within the UK, this might be affecting you. Using your domain's IP address, you can do an ARIN search on whois.net and get a pretty reliable indication of the physical location of the server. Since all of the country-coded search engines give a great deal of weight to geo-location, even when the user does not ask for a country-specific search, this is something you need to pay attention to in any case. And since one UK hosting company has some of their servers located in The Netherlands, you can't take for granted that your site is seen to be in the UK. Good luck!

[tigger]

thanks for that, tried what you suggested and its a showing my site is in Amsterdam which I don't understand as I was 100% sure it was UK so I've dropped my hosting company a line asking for confirmation. Its also a .co.uk name

[tigger]

rainborick

I've done a bit of digging and it looks like the ARIN database is corrupt as its returning loads of sites that are based in the UK as Amsterdam - even the main BBC website is says its hosted in Amsterdam

If you check the IP with Ripe it shows my site in Telford which is correct

So, if G is using ARIN for its geo-targetting that could be the problem?

[trinorthlighting]

I imagine that is the issue. I would venture to say that google uses arin to determine location. If arin recently moved around some ip ranges this could explain a lot of .uk issues

[tigger]

exactly! the problem is they are using corrupt data so this is going to mess with all UK sites if ARIN has them as based in Amsterdam - I've done a few and so far the bulk I've checked have all been wrong

GREAT!

[glengara]

*.. top 3 using .co.uk results..*

Do you mean "Pages from the UK" results?

[tigger]

yes - my site till G messed up its geo search was 3rd now 60th (update) but in Russia its 3rd!

[glengara]

Well if it turns up in the "Pages from the UK" results it doesn't sound like a geolocation issue to me, a .co.uk should be unaffected either way.

[tigger]

it did its not anymore

[glengara]

To clarify, in "pages from the web" on G.uk it's down to 60th from 3rd and has completely disappeared from the "pages from the uk" results?

Stupid question maybe, but we're not talking about a .com.uk domain by any chance?

[M3Guy]

I'm seeing a lot of corrupted results on ARIN as well

All my domains are .co.uk and all are hosted within the UK as verified by both the hosts and the info on RIPE, but like Tigger has already mentioned, I've seen a drop of some 40 - 60 places minimum over the last week maybe and now checking the ARIN info i'm being told all my sites are hosted in Amsterdam, surely this has to be effecting results being returned if G really is using the incorrect info from ARIN.

Dropped tham a mail, lets see what they come back with

[tigger]

>To clarify, in "pages from the web" on G.uk it's down to 60th from 3rd and has completely disappeared from the "pages from the uk" results?

if I search on g.uk its pulling 60th right now on both "pages from the web" & "pages from the uk" but on every other worldwide G its 3rd

>>Stupid question maybe, but we're not talking about a .com.uk domain by any chance?

Nope a .co.uk domain registered to a UK address and has been up for 4 years +

>>>Dropped tham a mail, lets see what they come back with

done the same as well - I wonder how many websites are suffering from this - also something else all the sites ranking well on G.co.uk when searching UK only are sites show US servers - boy G has really messed up!

[trinorthlighting]

I wonder if arin has been hacked? You should report it to arin immediately.

[Web_Savvy]

And so, the sad (LOL) story of troubles with google UK continues further to this thread:

Google backlinks reverted to six months ago
but only on google.co.uk
[webmasterworld.com...]

Since my post #:3199752 in the above thread, we've seen our UK site's traffic (.co.uk domain) all over the place (but never even close to previous levels), rising right upto about 5000 at the peak and dropping down to just under 2000 at the trough (where it has been for the past week or so).

First, the backlinks roll back, now the IP mixup. Wonder why these two major problems have affected UK only.

[trinorthlighting]

Probally cause they are .uk ip addresses that are effected.

[kaled]

My site was effectively banned from .uk searches for several weeks (maybe even a couple of months).

If your .com serps are ok and your host hasn't secretly relocated your site to another country, the only thing you can do is wait it out.

Kaled.

[tigger]

so yet again we have to sit back and wait for G to sort itself out

[Bones]

Hang on a second, I'm not up on my DNS etc, but some of the comments in this thread don't sound right to me.

The way I understand it in simple terms:
ARIN = American registry of IP ranges.
RIPE = European registry of IP ranges.

Why would ARIN hold full location details of European numbers? Surely that's RIPEs job and ARIN tell you as such when you look up a UK IP in their database. They say those details are held by RIPE (who are based in Amsterdam).

Am I way off there?