Geo targeting not working ? Not ranking well in the US.

[member22]

I am sure a lot of you have had this issue ( at least it seems from what I read in different forums ) to me the geo targeting tool from google webmaster tools doesn't work

Let me tell you why :

My website a .com domain is hosted in Switzerland and my target market is 95 % the United States. I have set the geo targeting tool to the United States more than 6 months ago I have seen ZERO change in my ranking in the USA

What I noticed on 3 keyword sentences I rank well in the United States and Europe. I am on the first page of google in 3 rd position in Europe and about 7 or 8 th position when I do a proxy search in the United Sates.

However whenever it is a more competitive keyword, 2 word keyword I rank pretty well in Europe, 1st or 2 nd page on google.com as well as google.fr, google.co.uk ... but if do the search with a us proxy I rank no where in the United States !

My website has been online for almost 2 years , I have done everything that needs to be done, links with anchored text, good keyword density on each page, Pr of 3 etc.. and in the usa my website doesn't rank anywhere in the first 200 search results for that competitive 2 keyword word.

I am thinking the issue is my IP address and where my website is hosted see that the keyword is extremely competitive.. I see no other reason.

Can anyone tell me what they think and if they have add the same issue.

Here is the other reason why I think it has to be the case : I have created another website 3 months ago with a .com domain name hosted on us servers and targeting the UK.

I rank on the first page of google for the keyword I am targeting in the United States and I rank nowhere in the UK even though the geo targeting is set to UK.

Thanks,

[tedster]

Yes, if the IP address is not assigned to the US that can be an inhibiting factor.

[member22]

It seems to me that a non TLD domain name such as a .com ranks the same in every country has long as it is based on us servers whereas a non TLD based on european servers only ranks in Europe ?

Can anyone tell me more about this or I am dreaming ;)

[edited by: tedster at 7:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2009]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

I'm not sure I understand the question exactly. Are you asking about country code TLDs such as .co.uk or .de -- compared to the international TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, .info and so on?

If so, the answer is yes, country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) will have a lot more challenge in ranking outside their own country.

[member22]

If I decide to switch my hosting from the USA to the UK ? and am I going to loose my current ranking ?

Thank you,

[edited by: tedster at 7:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2009]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

Yes, you may well see a loss of rankings within the US if you go to a UK server. There are other factors taken into account - many of which are discussed in the threads in our Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

[member22]

Thank you tedster ! and by the way that is global IP network ?

I am looking at some companies in the usa for hosting and some talk about global IP , does it mean that has far as seo see that they have has servers all over the work you rank in the same position whatever country some does the search in ?

<snip>

Thanks,

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:23 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2009]

[AnkitMaheshwari]

For the ranking in a particular country (area), Google will mostly follow the below sequence to determine the relevance in ranking:

'TLD' followed by 'Hosting Location' followed by 'Geo/IP targeting'