Geo-Targeting Troubles Spread

[Whitey]

On results from google.co.uk [ filtered with "sites in UK" ] we are showing both our .COM and .co.uk site in positions 45 and 46 for the same term.

Neither site is hosted in the UK or has any Whois information for the UK. The only relationship with the UK is the TLD of the 2nd one. [webmasterworld.com...]

I'm now observing from an AU IP, on google.co.za SERP's , 2 .com.au , are appearing in .co.za with .za filter . Same industry vertical - absolutely no KW relationship to the SERP except the generic "widget".

These appear in the top 10 results of .co.za

Looks like Google is testing some ramp up on GEO targeting sites alongside user IP's - but it isn't working real well at the moment. Any other reports ?

[tedster]

Although it is a problem, it doesn't surprise me so much to see English language countries get crossed up - especially if Google uses location of backlinks as one factor. But recently in the UK I saw examples of Chzeck and Dutch language sites with ccTLDs in the "pages from the UK" results.

Yes, this facet of the search results is not working all that well so far.

[dstiles]

I don't see how geolocation can work. There are too many flaws in the concept.

How can google determine which country a site "belongs" to and who its target audience is? Lexical analysis? Certainly not server location.

A lot of UK sites use .com domains and are hosted in the USA (lower costs), offering goods and services world-wide. Some UK sites are hosted in Germany (popular hoster) and India (cheap) as well as USA. Some USA sites use UK TLDs hosted in Europe, and UK registration agents are currently offering registration of TLDs from as far away as China.

How about holiday sites? French or Irish holiday sites hosted in the UK still should be viewed world-wide.

Our own most popular sites, hosted in UK, are of interest to a specific discipline world-wide - indeed, most of one site's visitors are from Canada and Australia.

And then there are the technical sites of various disciplines, which are usually global in nature.

So returning USA results to USA searches and UK results to UK searches is going to be pretty dumb in many cases UNLESS the searcher specifically requests a country of origin, and even then it's bound to fail in many instances.

[edited by: tedster at 5:10 pm (utc) on July 23, 2008]
[edit reason] remove specifics [/edit]

[tedster]

Geo-targeted search results certainly is what Google would call a "hard job" - learning when to filter in a strict fashion and when to loosen up. It will take more than hosting location plus query terms plus backlink data - and the required query analysis and query expansion involved would be full of challenges.

If Google can get this right (and they haven't yet) I can see how it would be useful.

[dstiles]

I don't see how geolocation can work. There are too many flaws in the concept.

How can google determine which country a site "belongs" to and who its target audience is? Lexical analysis? Certainly not server location.

A lot of UK sites use .com domains and are hosted in the USA (lower costs), offering goods and services world-wide. Some UK sites are hosted in Germany (popular hoster) and India (cheap) as well as USA. Some USA sites use UK TLDs hosted in Europe, and UK registration agents are currently offering registration of TLDs from as far away as China.

How about holiday sites? Holiday sites in any location usually need to be viewed world-wide.

Our own most popular sites are in a specific discipline and they are hosted in UK. They are of interest to people in that discipline world-wide - indeed, most of one site's visitors are from Canada and Australia.

And then there are the technical sites of various disciplines, which are usually global in nature.

So returning USA results to USA searches and UK results to UK searches is going to be pretty dumb in many cases UNLESS the searcher specifically requests a country of origin, and even then it's bound to fail in many instances.

[edited by: tedster at 10:07 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2008]

[Whitey]

John Mu @ Google has just demonstrated that a regional TLD may appear in another region's SERP's. Link Here [groups.google.com] This one involves .TV which is a more obvious example , but you'd have to think that G is trying very hard to get other results that they deem relevant to do the same.

Could it be that there was some experimentation in other sectors than media / TV ?

[tedster]

Google makes another intentional exception for the .fm TLD, by the way.

I just heard that a .in domain began to rank well on google.com. Maybe something new is in the works.