Geo Location & Search Results with a twist

[whats up skip]

I have a site about Japan in English, but with com.au domain. I know, not the best choice, but I made it seven years ago.

I am now finding that Google is making geo location more and more important in search results, but I have found a few interesting twists in the story.

For a USA located IP address Google.com can give very different results to Google.com for an IP address located in Australia or Japan.

Here is the twist, Google.com results for an IP address located in Australia or Japan are (basically) the same.

Results for Google.com.au for an IP address located in Australia are very different to Google.com at the same location. This is what you would expect.

I would assume that English speaking visitors to Japan would use Google.com (or com.au or co.uk) and not Google.co.jp as this all in Japanese.

[edited by: tedster at 6:16 am (utc) on Dec. 16, 2008]

[tedster]

That's a pretty good summary of the way things are these days. Interesting that google.com users from Japan and Australia get pretty much the same treatment - maybe there's no strong reason to get more granular right now.

[whats up skip]

At least I can save a little bit on cancelling the Japanese VPN.