aol.co.uk / Google problem - UK-hosted .net website doesn't show up

for results within UK

[lee_sufc]

This has been going on for some months now but nothing has changed.

Basically, I am having a problem on aol.co.uk that I experienced with Google intermittently earlier this year in that if I search "results within UK", my UK-hosted .net website doesn't show up anywhere!

Anyone know why?

[rainborick]

There is at least one UK hosting company whose servers are not actually located in the UK, which causes Google to exclude generic Top Level Domains like .net from the 'pages from the UK'. You can check what country is assigned to your site's IP address using tools available online. Search on things like "website ip country" and you'll find lots of them. If the tool says your site is located in the UK, then you need to contact Google. Earlier this year Google was having troubles recognizing some IP addresses that should have been assigned to the UK. But if the tool says your site is located in a different country, you need to either change to a .uk domain name or switch hosting services. The latter is the best choice since changing hosts is nearly painless and it will not cause your rankings to do anything but improve.

[lee_sufc]

Just checked the IP address and my hosts are located in the UK. I am not the only site this is happening to - I have noticed it on numerous sites.

Who should I contact now?

[Robert Charlton]

Where are your inbound links coming from? If they're all from outside the UK, this might suggest to Google that it's not a UK site.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:04 pm (utc) on Aug. 27, 2007]

[lee_sufc]

Primarily from within the UK but I also have a few from outside the UK (mainly from directories)