Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Is local search a good or bad thing?
The pros of local search,
For business targetting a set geographic region this is a great thing as they have no "wasted" visits from clients they are unable to ship to/service properly.
From an end users point of view a local server will provide a quicker response time and be more usable than a server half way across the world.
The cons of local search,
However for businesses running an information based site or a multi country operation the filter effectively shuts off large swathes of the web community.
The filter also has the effect of reducing the chances of gaining links from those countries further reducing your "international" PR (IPR).
End users searching for a specific piece of information are denied potentially useful sources based on their location.
Large mainly information sites have seen a massive decline in visitor numbers dramatically reducing revenue potential.
There is clearly a need for localisation of results but we as webmasters need to question the implimentation of it.
However in GWT we can only choose 1 geographic region. An option to select more than one or to say that our site is international would be very well recieved by myself and i'm sure lots of webmasters out there.
I see google.com as an international search engine and when I use it I expect to see results from any country (but in English).
When I use a country name in my search or switch to google.myregion I prefer to see results with a regional rating.
Perhaps google could introduce a "results from" search option in our settings where we can specify TLD's we want included in the results set as we search with a default option of all selected. Also we could use the language option to filter results.
However in GWT we can only choose 1 geographic region.
All you need is one of the international TLDs - .com, .net., .org and so on. Then you don't need to set a geographic association.
Disallowing local TLDs world-wide (and not allowing us to alter their target audience!) is, as you say, killing some businesses. For one of our sites we've had to add a .COM with a completely new set of data just to by-pass this problem. We're about to discuss the problem with another two companies and our own UK-based information sites are suffereing in America, Canada and the Antipodes - which, with UK, are their true target audiences.
Surely it's not beyond google to allow world-wide and local searches without killing traffic that provides a livelihood to site owners? In the current econmic tragedy we need all the trade we can get, and a lot of it is easily managed world-wide, especially information, travel and suchlike.
If google forces everyone to use .COM for international sites then rational domain names are going to run out sooner or later. Already .ORG and .NET are being abused, adopted for commerce instead of non-profit and networks. .INFO has usually only been used by spammers (does anyone know if this is selectable world-wide by google?) and .BIZ has always seemed a non-starter here (ditto google options?). Next it will be .MOBI or whatever ICANN come up with next.
Hello Google! The WWW stands for WORLD-WIDE Web! If it were Regional-Wide Web we'd have RWW and that would be something entirely different.
[edited by: tedster at 8:27 pm (utc) on Nov. 7, 2008]
I very foruntately have 2 client sites to compare in the same industry both are very similar in terms of size, SEO techniques, Age and targetted keywords, both have similar link quanties and PR and content on two totally separate IPs. The one hosted in the UK still does not rank well in the US wheras the US hosted one does. (Although the sites are not identical and link patterns are not identical there is a noticable bias given to the US hosted site.)
Why cant a UK hosted site about, say, cat deseases appear in the US results set? The key there is the content is not geographically oriented.
One wonders, if google persists in this stupidity, if some irate and rapidly-losing-revenue regional TLD holders may not combine in a legal action against google for restrictive practices, which this clearly is: thou shalt not peddle thy wares in MY country! World Wide Web? Yeah, google, right!
I have to make a decision this month based upon this and decide which sites will be moved to US-based servers and which sites will be kept on our European servers. Our Asian sites, although well represented in their local Google SERPS, are nowhere to be found on "the web" therefore they will probably all be moved to US servers.
It's ridiculous, this should not be a necessity for global websites. If G is going to try and guess everyone's searching intentions then all we'll end up with is a mashed-up lottery.
I have another, long-standing .COM with a world-wide trade that comes top in US (using megaproxy and various google "country" directives) and in UK. Same server and same IP as the UK site mentioned above.
If google really do take notice of country of domain hosting IPs these seem to have slipped through. If they take notice of domain registration country we're all stuffed!
It is important to remember that Google's top-level goal is not to bring traffic to every business, or to any particular business. Instead, the goal is to bring useful search results to every user. If you want international attention, it's best take every step you can to qualify as a clearly international business.
Many site owners chose their domain names based on the APPEARANCE that .COM was a US TLD. This is a common mis-perception and one that many Americans seem to believe is true: certainly the number of registered US domains seem to be very low. I don't have recent stats for UK domains but in 2003 there were about 4 times as many UK domains as there are US ones today. And if ICANN's "generic" domains get approval what's google going to do then? It'll be a melee.
As I said, the only ethical way for google to behave, if it wishes to be seen as an international search engine, is to behave like one and at very worst offer webmasters the chance to specify at least one target location such as World. Better would be multiple targets or go back to being a World Wide engine.
All it really takes for the savvy amongst webmasters is for google to include an option to designate a target location in ALL TLDs, not just COM/ORG. For the less savvy, the world is going to become very restricted.
Perhaps a new meta tag: a list of target countries. How about it, google?
On the other hand some recent UK searches for products by retail mail order started hitting sites priced in USD at about position number 5.
sites priced in USD
Yep, that really annoys me too. I was searching for a low cost item the other day, the equivalent of about $20-30, and nearly every link and AdWord on the first page of Google.co.uk (pages from the UK) were all US Dollar ads.
Something's really screwed-up.
I reiterate: the web is supposed to be world wide.
Sure, and the phone network is worldwide, too. But that doesn't mean there should be a single unfiltered phone book for the entire world. (To use yet another analogy, it might be useful to list a corporate customer-service number for McDonalds in the Widgetville phone book, but it wouldn't make sense to list the McDonald's store in Whatsitberg or Timbuktu in the Widgetville phone book.)
There might be some value in having meta statements or Google Webmaster Tools checkboxes that showed your intention to reach audiences in certain countries, regions, or the entire world, but they wouldn't be a universal solution, because not every site owner would take advantage of such options. Google would still have to take the lead in deciding what a searcher should find on a SERP.
Most people who side WITH google's geo-location quote searching for sales sites as the advantage. A vast number of sites peddle globally useful information. It doesn't really matter what TLD they come in under, although generally one's own language is useful.
I see no real problem with google leaving the system as it used to be and merely adding, as they do now on the UK version, a world and a local search option. Possibly with other regional options for those who need other-country searches, perhaps with an option in Preferences to turn them on/off.
signor_john it is exactly that - the large corporate sites/information sites are all being filtered out along with the small local businesses in the global search. The point we are making is that the global search filter is not discerning enough and many sites are losing traffic as a result.
