UK Product/Shopping Results - full of US sites?

[sanjuu]

I'm seeing this more and more recently. If I do a search for something (I'm based in the UK and using google.co.uk searching 'the web' rather than just UK results), I used to see primarily UK-based results - especially if the search was product/shopping based.

Now I'm seeing lots of US sites in the results, and as a user it's very frustrating.

For example if I select a 'year' then a car make and model I'm seeing a page that has seven results from US sites and only three from UK sites isn't useful at all.

From a webmaster's point of view it's also highly frustrating. The question is if this is a temporary situation or if Google has truly lost the plot in terms of some of the results it's showing.

[tedster]

We've seen a lot of changing and shifting in this area in recent years. I doubt that this current change is "permanent", but it does sound troubling. I thought Google had improved in this area in the past year.

[HuskyPup]

Yep, I've noticed this as well, very frustrating and also corporate sites that have absolutely no intention or possibility of supplying the UK market creeping in.

[Staffa]

I noticed the same yesterday while looking for an item. Just one "sort of" decent result on page one, all the rest irrelevant plus umpteen pages from A**zon for out of stock ! items

Yikes !

[sanjuu]

If anything the results are worse (i.e. less relevant to a UK-based user) than they were a few months ago.

Not sure what the logic is really?

[piatkow]

Yep, I've noticed this as well, very frustrating

Me too. What is especially frustrating is that you no longer get the UK option until after you have performed the initial search rather than selecting before searching.

Once upon a time I would not normally see a US site on page 1, now if I forget to redo the search as UK only I start seeing prices in dollars.

[engine]

What is especially frustrating is that you no longer get the UK option until after you have performed the initial search rather than selecting before searching.

I agree, this is a backward step, imho.