WMT "Set Geographic Target" not working as stated?

[WebWalla]

One of my sites is written in 2 languages and targets two countries.

In Google Webmaster tools I have specified the main site, example.com, as not having a geographic location. This site is in English and I want to target the whole world.

The site has a subdomain, es.example.com, which targets only the country of Spain. I have added this URL to Webmaster Tools and have specified the geographic location as Spain. Vanessa Fox posted at SearchEngineLand that this was possioble (for subdomains or folders).

Now, 2 weeks later, when I search for a specific string from the Spanish subdomain in google.es with the "sites from Spain" option selected it still doesn't show up. If I select the "sites in Spanish" option it does, with a cache date later than the date on which I made the change in W.Tools.

Has anybody actually got this to work? Is it just a question of time? Will Google only show it in the sites in Spanish option and not the sites from Spain option, despite what they gave to understand?

Thanks.

[glengara]

I read somewhere it could take a couple of months to work....

[conor]

Why not just get a .es or host the subdomain on a Spanish IP range?

[glengara]

Yo Conor, have you noticed any odd inclusions in the Paginas de Espana results?

Over on G.ie we're finding quite a number of pages in the PFI results that in theory shouldn't be there... (US hosted .coms)

[WebWalla]

Why not just get a .es or host the subdomain on a Spanish IP range?

Because the Webmaster tools option, if it worked, would be free ;-)

[conor]

Glengara,

Just did a quick check but not seeing PDE results with US ip's on .com's in a couple of the sectors we watch

[conor]

Webwalla,

It might be free for G but what about Y and ML?

.es are now open registration and cost €8

[Bewenched]

I"m not so sure about it taking a couple of months to work.

Weird thing is that I set ours for USA and then we got bombarded with international orders. I turned it back off and it's back to normal with in a couple of days.

Too quirky for me. I'm leaving it off for now.

[WebWalla]

For this particular domain, it's not worth any investment - the question was more academic, for future possibilities.

But just out of interest, where can you get .es domains for €8?

[conor]

If you search in G, in Spanish you should be able to find many registrars offering .es from 8 to 20 Euros for 1 year.

[leadegroot]

Over on G.ie we're finding quite a number of pages in the PFI results that in theory shouldn't be there... (US hosted .coms)

Have you looked at their backlinks? They may have enough .ie backlinks to hit the PFI results.
I see it allll the time in .au results 'how did they get here? oh, backlinks...'

[WebWalla]

As an update for anybody interested (I had almost forgotten about this myself!), some time during this month of February the change has finally kicked in, and searches for my subdomain now show up in google.es when the "páginas de España" (Sites from Spain) option is chosen.

The main domain shows up in all other international searches.

So it looks like the changes take around 3 months to take effect.

[edited by: WebWalla at 6:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2008]