Google geo targetting

IP, TLD and links.

[Crush]

We have noticed more Geo targetting recently from Google. As our sites are in 18 languages it is a real headache for us.

Someone please rank by most important factors:

IMO

IP address
TLD
Country of links pointing to your site
DNS

[Miamacs]

- Regional hubs, authorities linking in ( their TLD, language, IP )
- site's TLD ( not that important in some regions )
- site's IP ( only in fierce competition )
- site's charset ( the META, *not* the language setting )

Having the regional players link to a page ( and with a link ) in the right language is a huge plus.

[glengara]

Think it's going to become increasingly difficult for "foreign" sites to rank on regional Gs where there's "local" competition for the term, local anchor text may help but there's no sign that it does yet, IMO.

[rainborick]

The major search engines use two common criteria for determining geo-location: (1) the presence of a Country Code Top Level Domain Name (CC TLD, as in "somesite.co.uk") or (2) the physical location of the server that hosts the site, based on its IP address. Google says that it will also "sometimes" consider domain registration data, but since they don't specify when they do so and they are the only ones who do it at all, its not helpful. But no other factors are considered. You can find this information on the search engines' websites - or at least you could when I researched this many months ago. And since all of the major search engines give a great deal of weight to geo-location in the rankings, even when the user does not request a country-specific search, its obviously important to have your site properly recognized.

If your target market is a country that supports a Country Code Top Level Domain Name, that should be your first choice since its so unambiguous and uniformly supported. Failing that, you must have your site hosted on a server that is physically located in the target country. Take care to double-check the server location before switching hosts or buying a new service. One hosting service in the UK, whose own site has a .uk CC TLD, has servers located outside the UK, so any site hosted there with a generic TLD like .com, .net, .info, .org, etc., would not be recognized as being in the UK. Google also had some difficulty earlier this year properly recognizing some IP addresses as being in the UK. So, the CC TLD is the best option, if available.

Language is a completely separate issue. Language can be determined on a domain level through server header information or on a page-by-page basis via <meta> tags and other HTML mark-up.

[Miamacs]

You know I'm not sure that the ever-troubled Google.co.uk results would be the best example when trying to rank on regional SERPs for 18 languages, 17 of which are other than English. You don't buy all 18 domains and hosting in 18 countries.

But no other factors are considered.

Sorry, but this is flat out wrong.
You read this on Google?
Good luck.

...

Regional hubs linking to the regional site with proper anchor text.
Tld's and local IPs also play a role in rankings, sure. But they have a refining role.
Without gaining some 'local' link juice, you won't be in the local SERPs at all. Authorities are easier, have more of the same, and when optimizing for 18 languages you don't have time to play hide and seek with smaller companies.

Of course some 'regional hubs' are also authorities in many countries, thus they'll have some feedback on your ranking in more than 1 set of SERPs... thus you probably already rank *somewhere* in a few.

Local links for local ranking...
Makes a whole lot of sense, don't you think?

[rainborick]

When I said 'no other factors are considered', I meant in terms of how the search engines assign geo-location to a domain. Geo-location is important to rankings, but obviously many other factors are involved. If you get links from pages that are relevant to a location you will certainly improve your rankings for search terms that include the location name, but it won't affect geo-location. So, for example, if a user requests a country-specific search (as in 'pages from the UK'), a domain can have bunches of high-quality, relevant local links, but unless it is seen as being in the UK, it won't appear in the results. Similarly, if a google.co.uk user does NOT request a country-specific search, if the site is not seen as being in the UK it will not rank as well as it would have if it was.

[300m]

For what it is worth, the searchers IP location (gl) can play a role in what serps they see.

[Crush]

It has been fine until a month or 2 ago. Something changed and instead of being top 5 we are no middle to bottom of first page. Still good but I am not used to losing. All our links and our servers are in one location.

In general, the English serps dropped because there is the most competition there. The rest are holding up

We will move the server to see if that helps but I suspect that we need some local links too.

If someone has a good relevant article/post definitively from a google rep on this please paste it.

[glengara]

The only thing that springs to mind is a recommendation some time ago from either MC or GG that CCTLDs were the preferred option, someone might remember who/where....

[Whitey]

Just watch you have 100% language integrity in each. O/wise the pages may loose strength and sap the overall page strengths through relegation to duplicate content [ assuming the pages are EN dupes ] . This is common on a lot of syndicated content with foreign language feeds.

[dhatz]

Indeed, there is a proliferation of sites which have simply registered the same keyword domain under several country-TLD and then serve the same (EN language) content. Even the URL structure and arguments (domain.tld/page.php&id=123) are the same. Only change is the template "skin".

According to my understanding, this is spamming. Yet in a quick test I did a month ago and again today, Google is awarding these sites with excellent rankings: I've seen up to 8 URLs with the very same DB-created content dominate the first 3 pages of SERPs.

[lgn1]

My experience, is once Google knows where you were from, they won't change your location, based on new TLD's and Server Location.

We are located in Canada, however our site was changed to hosting in the USA, for over two years.

Google still sees us as Canadian, and we are ranked higher on Google.ca rather than Google.com

We however started some new web buisnesses from scratch, with the .com TLD and hosted in the USA. On these sites, we are doing well in the USA, but much poorer in Canada.

So if you had an existing site for a while, you are basically stuck with Googles original determination of where you are from, and your only option is to start a brand new domain with a .com and hosted in the USA.

[glengara]

".. you are basically stuck with Googles original determination.."

I'd have my doubts about that, my host bought some Dutch IPs and assigned me one, site fell out of "pages from Ireland" until he re-registered the IPs as Irish.