.com on US server in UK results

[energylevel]

Anyone know if there is a way to let Google know that .com site on U.S. server is actually a UK site? Is it really the only solution to move to a UK host?

[RichardK]

The general views seems to be just that - move to a UK host. We face exactly the same position as you right now and plan to go down that route. The other alternative is changing to .co.uk but with the history you have associated with the .com, it's likely not worth it and just as much hassle, if not more, anyway.

I've read that being recognised as a UK site by DMOZ and / or having links from other recognised UK sites may help. Therein lies the problem though....it MAY help. Which means if it doesn't, by the time you find out you've lost another 6 to 9 months!

In another thread I've been trying to work out how significant searches are on Google for UK only results when searching on c.co.uk. No answers as yet...I live in hope someone has done some reseach into this! At the same time I'm trawling the web to see what I can find independently - if I come up with anything I'll let you know.

[WebWalla]

I can't give you stats for the UK, but I have what I believe is an analogous situation.

One of my sites is Spanish (hosted in Spain), and the number of users selecting the "pages from Spain" option in Google numbers between 15 and 20%.

This, then, is the potential increase in visitors if you can get Google to recognise the site as local.

[wheelie34]

I have a .com that was hosted in the US on my own server, it was getting knocked back 3 to 6 places when a .co.uk only search was performed, I moved it to the UK as I wanted that extra traffic, now, when doing a UK only search 2 of my major competition move below me as they are hosting in the US now for my major keyword I enjoy rotation between 2nd and 3rd traffic increase after the move was atleast 40% up, well worth doing.

I have many customer sites with .co.uk still on my server in the US and they dont have any UK only search problems, just the .com, it works of the ip address.

[RichardK]

Thanks WebWalla - very interesting. It seems fair to knock UK figures down a bit due to language, so maybe 10% to 15%. With the web continually growing though, I can only imagine that this figure will increase both as users become more knowledgeable and Google's offerings become more local, more easily if the customer wants that.

I've done a lot or reading these last two days and whilst I have found some people with a US hosted site and a .com who perform well in UK only searches on g.co.uk, they are very, very rare. Generally you need a .co.uk domain name or to be hosted in the UK. Certainly that's where I'd focus for a more certain result.

[WebWalla]

It seems fair to knock UK figures down a bit due to language

Maybe not. Bear in mind that unlike google.co.uk, google.es offers 2 extra options ... "pages in Spanish" and "pages in Spain". I'm only talking about the "pages in Spain" option. My .com site was already appearing in the "pages in Spanish" SERPs when it was hosted in the US - now it appears in all 3 options, and the 15-20% increase is only for the "from Spain" option.

[RichardK]

Good point. This has been ticking over with me all day...bottom line is however you look at it a possible 20% increase is well worth having.

Any ideas on the timelag between moving hosts (US to UK) and then appearing in the regional (UK) only results? I'm guessing potentially a month or two...time enough for Google to crawl it, determine that it's now in the UK and hence list us in those results too. Or....& I hope not, but the other option is it's as long as it can take a new site to get listed. Any experiences on this?

[wheelie34]

As instant as the next crawl, when I moved mine within 2 weeks it was appearing UK only, setup the new hosting before changing your DNS, you position wont improve instantly BUT it wont drop either in my experience, the only thing thats changed is your sites IP address, and when thats picked up it will start returning for UK only.

Good luck

[RichardK]

Thanks Wheelie - very useful and reassuring!

[tigertom]

Make sure the IP you host on is perceived as a UK one. If the web-host's own site turns up in a 'UK only' search for their company name, that's a good clue .

[stunningorange]

Perhaps this is a good place to ask about Geo-filtering with a US bias. As you all say, filtering for a location such as the UK can be done by country extension or Hosting IP - but what about filtering for US sites? As there is no widely-used country specific US TLD, is IP address the only way to filter with a bias for the US?

Search results on Google.com (carried out in the US from a US located IP) are largely .com US based sites with a few other country extension sites. How does Google place a bias on US only sites when there is no widely used country specific US extension and - as energylevel says - many UK sites in particular use a .com TLD AND host in the US - making both TLD and IP Address a poor measure of geo-location?

If you look at it the another way - take two sites - identical in every way (PR, no of back links, topic, hosting location) - but one is a .co.uk and one is a .com, which has the greater chance of ranking in a Google.com search carried out in the US?

[Munster]

This is a very interesting topic, and the stats on how many people use the "pages from ***" fuction does anyone have stats on how many people in the UK select the "pages from UK" button?

I agree with whats been said on here having been throught it so many times with clients, it is best to host sites in the country you are trying to target. However there are hosting companies out there who can assign country specific IP address' which works just as well.

A company called one and one will give you an IP address from any country you ask for, but the servers are actually based in Germany.

I have used them for a few different clients now, one spanish and a couple UK and it seems to do the trick.

Nial