US websites ranking in UK on Google.co.uk

[marcus1987]

Hi All,

Over the past few weeks since the new panda roll out i am starting to see US websites ranking for searches in Google.co.uk even with the location set to UK. This seems to be on phrases that are more related to american terms but surely this is not good for user experience?

Has any one else been experiencing the same recently and what have you been seeing?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld marcus1987

Has any one else been experiencing the same recently and what have you been seeing?

I've been seeing this for ages now however I have to admit it is getting even worse. I am even seeing it for non-American related terms and especially so for products that are imported INTO the USA.

Quite how they have got themselves into a muddle like this is I have no idea but I do know that it annoys my UK widget buyers.

[superclown2]

Yes, I noticed it a week or two ago. We have had a lot of news reports from foreign countries appearing on the first page for some queries for quite a while though. I wouldn't have thought that any of them were interesting to the average UK searcher.

[mrengine]

I see the same thing reversed - UK websites ranking in Google.com. Seems Google is having some location issues at the moment.

[Simsi]

Oddly I noticed this for the first time today while searching for carpet tiles of all things. Definitely not something you'd ship in.

[RedBar]

while searching for carpet tiles

I actually produce specialised construction products 90%+ of which are imported widgets into the USA, likewise why would anyone in the UK ship in from the USA widgets originally exported from Brazil, China, India, Italy, Turkey etc.

Their algo has absolutely no comprehension whatsoever of my widgets these days, it used to have until a few years back, now it hasn't a clue.

[piatkow]

Now that you mention it I had it noticed on a few occasions but not often enough to register as a real issue.

[JesterMagic]

Seeing more than usual UK and AU sites higher up in our niche. Showing results from other continents in our niche doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[bumpski]

Have you checked Webmaster Tools:
"search traffic"
"international tools"
"Click "country tab""

Being in the US I recently removed all country targeting using the "unlisted" setting.

Perhaps something has changed in this WMT option?

[Kelowna]

Just to add, in Canada I am seeing the same thing, the .ca results are full of .com and UK stuff now. Maybe they turned something off during the testing of this panda/penguin update?

[linkbuildr]

Same here in .ca west coast...tons of uk sites showing up for geo specific results.