How does location affect non-local SERPs?

[dibbern2]

I have been under the impression that ALL G serps are biased by local factors, but I'm reconsidering that notion. Let me give an example for this question:

Say I have a client who has a fishing resort in Ontario. Now I believe that if I search *fishing resorts*, and my location is Wisconsin, I'm going to get serps full of Wisconsin fishing resorts. Likewise if my location was Michigan or Maine, or California.

But what if searched *Ontario fishing resorts* from these different locations? Would there be a skew thats driven by my locale?

My reason for asking is frustration in researching standings for some non-local clients. I've been under the belief that it is almost impossible to get a nationwide picture (for everywhere EXCEPT the clients locale), due to G's local bias. Am I wrong?

Thanks in advance.

D2

[jimbeetle]

But what if searched *Ontario fishing resorts* from these different locations? Would there be a skew thats driven by my locale?

No, there shouldn't be a skew in that instance. No matter how inept G might appear to be in some of its recent moves it *has* to return non-local SERPs for that type of query else users would stampede away.

I've been under the belief that it is almost impossible to get a nationwide picture (for everywhere EXCEPT the clients locale), due to G's local bias. Am I wrong?

No, you're not, for certain queries it's almost impossible. If I remove the location from your example I get results somewhat weighted toward New York, with the suggestions heavily biased that way.

There are so many factors that affect what individual users see at any one moment that telling a client what positions are what has become quite difficult.

[skweb]

D2, when I did a search for Thai restaurant (in a Boston suburb), I saw results such that the top two were at least 40 miles away, the third one was in California, and then there are seven results from Google maps that list restaurants around my house.

However, when I added [my town name] plus thai restaurant, the first three hits were the restaurants that are literally within a mile from my house (and G actually lists my location as not my town but the one next to mine). And interestingly enough I did not add my state name to the search and I am very confident that almost all states have a town with the same name as mine.

In a third search I put chicago thai restaurant and basically I am seeing Thai restaurants only in Chicago.

So the conclusion is that you can still search for almost anything and G does a pretty good job.

[Robert Charlton]

My reason for asking is frustration in researching standings for some non-local clients. I've been under the belief that it is almost impossible to get a nationwide picture (for everywhere EXCEPT the clients locale), due to G's local bias. Am I wrong?

Note that in the left hand column, Google has a "Change location" input field, which should be helpful to you in your research.

Prior to offering this choice, Google had gotten very good at automatically determining location in metro areas when it assumed local intent and the placename indicator was omitted from the search. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and when Google first began to serve up default local results without placename entered, the results were awful. They were giving me postoffice locations, eg, that were on the other side of the Bay. But within several months, they'd gotten to where they could pinpoint my location within a few city blocks. My guess is that they were using ISP data.

Now, with location set manually, I need either to change my location preferences if I'm looking for information for another neighborhood... or to enter another location in the query.

There is no "location neutral" setting that I've been able to find. Location is perhaps Google's most insistent personalization factor.

[piatkow]

On google UK it seems to be based on the default google maps location. For me that seems to be related to the time when I looked at the location site for a film that I had just watched. I never intend to go there but I cannot delete it, only change to a different location.