Top in Google India but page 4 on google.com

[Hyder_Ali]

Hello,

After using every seo technique i'd been successful in bringing my site on top 10 in Google.co.in. But my site in Google.com is on 4th page & is getting down everyday but I want to bring it on 1st Page. My query is:

What Should I do to bring it on 1st Page in Google.com?

If I do some changes does it Affect my Position on Google.co.in?

Do this happen if I promote it and it will come on 1st page in Google.com and drop in google.co.in?

Have anyone got something resemblance in promoting yours site in India or (any other country) and comparing it with USA.

[tedster]

Changes you make will certainly affect every version of Google. First guess, it sounds like your site may be getting a boost on Google India for geographic factors (such as its IP address).

As to what you should do to improve your google.com ranking - well, there's no specific advice since every website's situation would be different. I'd start by studying the top sites and their backlinks. Then compare what you discover to what you have on your own site. Analysis first, and then intelligent action.

[Hyder_Ali]

Yes tedster, my TLD is .in and my specific target is India but i'm providing services all over. So, if get backlinks from us based site so do it will increase my ranking in Google.com and I hope it doesnt had affect on my Google India ranking.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Due to the .in TLD it would be tough time getting it ranked on google.com.
As you said, US based links would help but will take a lot more time for the site to rank on google.com as you have to get the authority for the site in that region. Any onpage changes that you will make would definitely affect the ranks in google.co.in

[Hyder_Ali]

Yes AnkitMaheshwari, So did you mean I should not change any onpage factors and consider more of offpage optimization so that it will increase my ranking in Google.com

[Hyder_Ali]

And Ankitmaheshwari if get a link from US based site so does that affect my ranking in Google.co.in

[AnkitMaheshwari]

You can test some minor changes on the site as well, but give time to see how Google responds to each of them before going for another change to ensure that you do not loose traffic from .co.in
Yes, offpage is good to start but should maintain an equal focus on securing mixed links (including .co.in links)) if site is catering the global market.

[Hyder_Ali]

I don't think if I do some changes in ONpage it will affect my ranking in Google.co.in because my TLD is .in, my keywords are with country specific i.e India. My Contents are more specific about indian users and apart from these there is nothing I can change.

With Offpage I can do link building and that is the sole work I can do if want my site top in Google.com. Nothing Else.

[tedster]

It will be a major challenge to get a .in TLD to rank in google.com -- it may eventually rank on google.com for searches that are done from within India, but not internationally. That's just the way Google geo-targetting works.

Look in your Webmaster Tools account - there will NOT be an option to geographically target countries outside India. Your TLD as well as your IP address has pegged you as a "for India" website in Google's view.

[McMohan]

Hyder, you have 3 options -

1. Keep the show going. You have great ranks in Google India and India is your main target market. I would be a happy camper here.
2. Change the tld to .com, change whois to a US address and host the site in a US based server. Your rank will get better in Google.com and suffer in Google.co.in. If India is main market, I wouldn't want this to happen.
3. Keep the settings same and try and pretend to Google that you are interested in US market, by keeping your backlink profile almost exclusive to US sites. You will do mediocre in both .com and .co.in.

Faced with these scenarios, I would go for specialization in one market, than just an "also ran" in many.

[Hyder_Ali]

Thanks Mcmohan, Very Well written but then also I would like to go with no 3 as my services are not limited to indian customers only and if I'm getting US based clients then whats wrong with it. Every business is thinking of profit only whether it comes from your friends or from stranger.

[Webmeister]

My USA site does not rank on Google.co.in and that is because I am not in India. That's the way it should work. USA has too much competition as it is without Indian and Chinese sites crowding our market.

[HuskyPup]

@ Hyder_Ali

1. How old is this site?

2. In which country is it hosted?

3. Is the .com of your site available?

Have anyone got something resemblance in promoting yours site in India or (any other country) and comparing it with USA.

Yes, however it takes time, patience and good practice SEO knowledge.

[dusky]

I have the opposite problem.
One of the sites I manage is hosted in a US server, is a .com, 7-8 year old, its main focus is North America, has US based nameservers and IPs, most of the backlinks are from the US and Canada and some from the UK, in US English, WHOIS is UK as I own it BUT I use registrar's US whois address for privacy, registered in the US (was in the UK a year ago, then moved it to the US). Traffic 30-40% from India for the last year. I don't want that traffic as my advertisers want the traffic I used to get from the US which was 60-70% and now is only 20-25%, I already lost two major sponsors. I looked for the reasons, I can't see any, I get paranoid and think probably my major dedicated server provider who is the second largest in the world and in the US is basing some of the servers infrastructure hardware in India without our knowledge and spoofing DNS responses as US based which I can't see possible, but with the current recession, who knows!

Any thoughts Ted, incrediBILL or anyone else?

[tedster]

If you want to target a .com website to just the US you can do that within WebmasterTools.

[dusky]

If you want to target a .com website to just the US you can do that within WebmasterTools.

I already done that for over a year now Ted!

The only thing I think may be causing this is, more people bookmarked the site from India than anywhere else. My stats program puts google.com for this site as 3rd top referrer, google.co.uk as 7th and google.co.in as 30th. OK you might say a lot of people in India also use the .com to search instead of co.in which may explain it. If Google didn't rank it high in the SERPs returned to Indian based searchers, the site wouldn't have got the fame it has but can't be monetized properly unless the target audience is re-focused for the Indian market and that I am not too keen on at the moment.

There may be other variables affecting this and one could be that a couple of Indian large newspapers with 5-10m daily offline readerships borrow quotes/feeds from the site from time to time, there are only 4-5 backlinks from them (archived news stories), but when the quotes are fresh many people probably bookmark the site for future reference. I could log and analyze the top 100 IPs just to make sure they are unique Indian based users for a period of a month or so, but that is a strenuous job.

One connection I suspect also would make India based techies interested in the site's content is that it offers content frequented and some contributed by people from Silicon Valley, MIT, Cambridge, IBM and Microsoft developers and generally the software engineering geeks, and India is becoming a world leader in that!

If the situation goes on for another year, I'll have to make a switch purposely to the Indian market/audience, though I prefer a turn round and have mostly US/UK based at the moment!

[HuskyPup]

BUT I use registrar's US whois address for privacy

I have read reports, cannot remember where, that this may cause a problem and it seems to fit in with your timeline if I read it correctly.

I have several .in and co.in sites where they rank extremely well in Google.co.in but also they do very well in Google.com. In fact my companyname.in with Google.co.in outranks mycompanyname.com and vice versa in Google.com.

These sites are all UK registered, UK hosted and with the Whois on full view.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

You can also try with a .com domain hosted in India without any geo-targeting specified in Webmasters. This would help you in good/great rankings in google.co.in as well as mediocre rankings in google.com which can eventually increase with good backlink profile. I am using this for one of the sites and getting good results.