How to change Google's country localization for our site?

[sobole]

We used a server located in Canada approx 2 years ago. We've now moved back to the US but Google is still recognizing us as a Canadian website.
What to do?

[Receptional Andy]

It depends on how long ago the server has moved - if Google definitely knows that your new IP is in the US, I would wait at least a few weeks for the change to be live. You could try the geo-location options within Google Webmaster Tools, although personally I prefer not to. It likely won't change anything quicker anyway, and I'm no fan of vendor-specific options such as those.

[martinacastro]

Hi, I have a site that is in englis, in a hosting in US, and Google Webmaster Tools says that the site is for de US, but sometimes if I search using google local of my country, the site appears in the position 15, and if I search in Google USA appears in the position 450... Does Google knows that I live in that country (looking the whois)?

Regards

[martinacastro]

I forget. My site only have links from international sites, I donīt have links from sites of my country...

[sobole]

It's actually been over a year and Google is still considering us as a
Canadian site?
What should we do?

[Receptional Andy]

It sounds like Google is incorrectly mapping your site's IP to a Canadian host. It would be worth checking via a reverse IP tool as to whether this affects other US sites on your IP range (and indeed that the host's data centre is in the US).

If it does, you're stuck with the option of switching IP or host, or using the options provided by Google within Webmaster Tools.

[Balle]

I have noticed somthing like this too. I live in europe.

I have a .com targeting the us/ english speaking audience - it's hosted in the us too - i want my audience to get the fastest posible respons from the server.

searching for sitename/keyword in my local country version of google.xx my website ranks #1. However searching in google.com it ranks on page 2.

I don't currnetly use G's webmastertools ...

my whois shows my european country
my website is also a google news source - google news shows my website featured articles as "european country - sitename"

my website is not even awailable in my local language - so why does google care about where i am born.

Does google want me to move to the states? :-)

Why is it important where the site owner is located? // is it important?

[sobole]

My host is in my city in the US. Google is still giving us Canadian traffic because we are still considered Canadian pages. I thought they would make the change shortly after we changed to our US host but they haven't. Any ideas?

[Mark_Aude]

Hi, If you login to Google Webmaster Tools (do a search for this online and it should be the first result), then you have to follow a process to verify/validate that you own the site. Under Settings you can then tell Google where your target country is. It's got very little to do with hosting. Hope that helps! 1 Website Designer.