Geo-targeting questions

[martinacastro]

I search in the forum and did not found info to answer my doubt...:

- I have a site hosted in USA
- I dont have contact info like address or phone number, but I mention a lot of countries and cities of the whole world
- The site is associated with a google webmaster account, and the country profile of this account is USA.
- I live in Southamerica and I if search in google.com.mycountry for very competitives KWs (not logged in google) I see my site in the first page, but if log in the account or search in google.com the site for the same KWs are in page 7 and page 14.


Someone knows why happens this? If I set geotargenting in Google Webmaster Tools to USA will help me to improve my results in Google.com? or put an american address in the contact page?

Thanks
Martin

[aakk9999]

and the country profile of this account is USA

If I set geotargenting in Google Webmaster Tools to USA ...

I am a bit confused with these two sentence as the first one implies that the geotargeting of your site is set to USA, and the second implies it is not.

My experience (not with USA but with geo-targeting other countries) is that it will improve your standing in geotargeted country, but how much it depends on the competition of that country. But setting geotargeting (in my experience) will adversely affect other google.ccTLD ranking.

Secondly, if you are not in USA and you want to see the results really seen on google.com in USA, I believe you have to add &gl=us in the URL. I am in UK and google.com with and without gl=us shows two different SERPs, although I have not verified with someone in USA to see which version they are in fact seeing on google.com.

And lastly, it is not just geo-targeting, it is also your link profile that also impacts how well you rank in a specific country.

BTW, one of reasons why you may be ranking better in google.com.yourcountry is because of lower competition.

[tedster]

if log in the account or search in google.com the site for the same KWs are in page 7 and page 14.

That's a surprise. Being logged in means you're seeing personalized results so I would have expect your own sites would rank better, for the most part.

The logged out results should be more of an indicator for you, and there you say you are ranking well, correct?

I live in Southamerica and I if search in google.com.mycountry for very competitives KWs (not logged in google) I see my site in the first page

I may not be understanding you correctly, but why are you searching on your country version of Google to see how you are doing in the US?

[martinacastro]

Thanks for the responses

@aakk9999 when I say "and the country profile of this account is USA" I mean the google account, not the geotargentin in GWT.

@tedster when I search in english google.com.mycountry I see my site in the first page, that is the strange...

why I see my site in the first page if I search using google of my country and I see it in page 7 in Google US?

[tedster]

Ah, now I understand. There may well be a lot less competition for the search results from within your country than there is for a google.com search. That's the first issue to check out - not just how does your site rank from within the US, but who is ranking higher.

And then discover if those who rank higher than you on a US search show up below you for a search from within your country - or are they just not in the list at all.

[martinacastro]

@tedster thanks for your comments

When I search in english in google.com.mycountry I search global, not only for pages of my country with that kw, do you understand?

the US search results are practly the same only one change (one leaves the first page and enters my site).

[aakk9999]

When I search in english in google.com.mycountry I search global, not only for pages of my country with that kw, do you understand?

Even when you search "global", i.e. when you do not check "pages from 'mycountry' only" box, the SERPs shown on the country specific Google will still "promote" what Google thinks is a local country site.

Clicking "pages from 'mycountry'" will not include sites from other countries in local SERPs.

What this tells me is that for whatever reason (and despite your USA hosting and your Google account setting), Google perceives your website as somehow 'belonging' to your country.

You can try geotargeting the site to USA in WMT and see if this makes a difference, however be aware that you may drop in your country SERPs, whilst it is not guaranteed that you will raise in US although it should help.

<added>Have you checked your links and your traffic? Do the majority of links and traffic come from your country, or from USA or from elsewhere?</added>

<added#2 to avoid double posting>

the US search results are practly the same only one change (one leaves the first page and enters my site)

If your site is on pages 7 and 14 on Google.com, that means that you have skipped over approx. 60 sites to come to page #1 on your country SERPs. Listings above you are probably strong sites. What about the listings you have skipped over? Did they just move down with your listing being "inserted" or was there more reshuffle? Can you identify where these sites are from that you skipped, i.e. is there any other from your country that you skipped over when comparing US SERPs with your local SERPs?
</added #2>

[martinacastro]

@aakk9999 thanks for your post.

all links to that sites are from other countries, more than 90% from USA or Europe...and traffic from my country is 1% approx.

I dont know what Google perceives of my site? perhaps that I access to that account from my country?

About the SERPs of first page my sites seems to be "inserted", but the most interesting thing that I discovered now is that using 3 differents PC I have 3 differents results for the same search in google.com.mycountry. Firs PAge, Page 18, Page 15 ... ....

[tedster]

There was a similar mystery discussed here several months ago - I believe in that case the country involved was Turkey. I don't think we ever heard one way or another if it was resolved, but the advice in that case was to use every possible signal you could manage to show that "Yes, this website is intended to serve US visitors."

It is possible that setting a US target in WebmasterTools would help - as long as you really don't care about other countries as traffic sources.

However, I'm wondering if this is a new issue for your site, or if it is longstanding. If the probelm just appeared recently, I wait a bit before taking any targeting action in WMT.

[martinacastro]

@thanks tedster

Seems to be new, since this weekend.

Another strange thing for this Kws(composed by kwA kwB) my site was in page 5 and now is page 14 or 12 (dancing) and in google.com.mycountry also dancing.
But for the same kw using others third kws (kwC and kwD) my site is Page 1 (kwC kwA kwB) (kwD kwA kwB).

Perhaps is banned/filtered for that kw?

[tedster]

Seems to be new, since this weekend.

Then it's way too soon to even form a theory. Google is showing a lot of chaotic signs right now.

[indyank]

About the SERPs of first page my sites seems to be "inserted", but the most interesting thing that I discovered now is that using 3 differents PC I have 3 differents results for the same search in google.com.mycountry. Firs PAge, Page 18, Page 15 ... ....

There was a similar mystery discussed here several months ago - I believe in that case the country involved was Turkey. I don't think we ever heard one way or another if it was resolved, but the advice in that case was to use every possible signal you could manage to show that "Yes, this website is intended to serve US visitors."

i believe that is how the traffic throttle (or "traffic shaping" as shaddows defines it) works.