Why Does Google New Zealand Show Same SERPs as google.com?

[Planet13]

Why am I seeing the same results in other countries versions of google as in the US? I am pretty sure it has something to do with browsing history...

Is it just because the same companies at the top of google.com also dominate google.co.nz or google.ca? Or is it because even when I sign out of my google account, it is still tracking me and showing me the US results?

Thanks in advance.

[milosevic]

If you search for "Wellington Restaurants", do you get local results for Wellington NZ, or Wellington in Florida?

I've had this issue myself intermittently. Most of the time it's from using the search bar in Firefox, which is set to search Google.com, and this always seems to return US localised results. Mozilla has recently completely shafted their "add search engine providers" setup, and there doesn't appear to be a plugin written for Google NZ. Though the plugin search/categorisation functionality is so appalling it's difficult to tell.

You can force NZ results by appending &gl=nz to the search querystring, this shows results for NZ even when searching on google.com

[Planet13]

If you search for "Wellington Restaurants", do you get local results for Wellington NZ, or Wellington in Florida?

When I search for Wellington Restaurants I get NZ restaurants, not Florida restaurants.

However, if I do a search for "spanish widgets" (a search I have done numerous times on google.com) then the results are all US companies and are NEARLY identical to the US based google.com SERPs.

I say NEARLY because there are a few notable exceptions - a couple of sites that rank in the top 10 in google.com are not to be found within the first 100 sites of google.co.nz.

But I would have imagined a LOT more local NZ sites ranking in the top 20 - there are only two.

You can force NZ results by appending &gl=nz to the search querystring, this shows results for NZ even when searching on google.com

Thanks for the tip. I tried that on google.com and the results are just about the same as on google.co.nz. So I guess my competitors must have mad links coming into their sites because they are all over the to SERPs in google.ca and google.co.za and probably most of the other English language google sites.

[inbound]

How about adding site:.nz to a search this forces just .nz (including all second level domains such as .co.nz) sites to show. This isn't a great solution for all queries (will miss any non-.nz that is specific to New Zealand and being .nz does not mean it's not just another version of a non New Zealand site) .

This approach works best in countries where the domain space is guarded by strict rules (e.g. .ie and .au).

[Planet13]

@ inbound:

How about adding site:.nz to a search this forces just .nz (including all second level domains such as .co.nz) sites to show.

Thanks for the tip. I will use it to find some overseas linking partners.

Actually, the thing I am most puzzled about is the fact that it LOOKS LIKE my fellow US-based competitors are ranking #1 in the SERPs for New Zealand and South Africa. I would think that for a term that google returns MOSTLY ecommerce sites, the local ones would rank in the top spots - but apparently this is not so.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm seeing both Russian and Japanese sites in some of the keywords I monitor, broken characters abound. My brother was recently in Japan before flying to Australia but other than that I see no reason for my being shown Japanese results... and the Russian is just bizarre.

I'd say they're tweaking something in the algo, but then again they always are.

[Planet13]

...but other than that I see no reason for my being shown Japanese results...

Hmmm...

Are you using a proxy server? Is there a way that google is thinking you ip is based in Japan?

And this is a WAG, but, is it possible that your bro bought tickets through a site he found by clicking through an adwords / adsense ad? Is it possible that google is personalizing SERPs based on what adwords ads people have clicked on?