Competing domains from different countries for same language?

[LinkedUp]

If you have multiple domains that target different countries that have the same language (e.G. mydoamin.nl & mydomain.be), and therefore the same keywords, do you think that it is possible that if one of the domains ranks for a keyword it is kind of blocking the other domain from being shown in the SERPs? I've experienced that at some point but I was never sure if my own domains were competing with each other or there were other reasons for it. Of course the correct html_lang tag was given for both. Did you experience something similar?

[not2easy]

Hi LinkedUp and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

Google will generally show you the most relevant results based on your location so while you may not see all page versions or domain versions, you see their results based on where you are located (and possibly user preferences). Different searchers may see different results based on things like ISP location and cookie/privacy preferences. Not every searcher using the same search terms will see the same results.

BTW, We prefer to use 'example.com', 'example.be', 'example.nl' for examples because that domain name is reserved by ICANN for that purpose. (No one can own it) ;)

[RedBar]

Did you experience something similar?

In the late 90s and into the early noughties I used to have about 20 country-specific domains all in those countries' language plus being hosted within those countries. It was well-thought out and worked extremely well.

However, as usual, things changed and G became more capable of recognising similar pages even though they were in totally different languages and the products were, in many cases, for a completely different market requirement. This created many problems for multi-national companies operating across international borders and, personally, I gave up with doing this in about 2010 or so and concentrated my efforts solely on the .com

As not2easy notes one will most likely now see localised results and, invariably, this will deliver a SERPs based on that specific country, most of the time, unless it is a local business it will not feature a .com BUT quite often it will list a US registered business .com even though they are totally unable to supply that market. Just why G cannot filter out this ridiculous scenario I do not know.

So, yes, one domain may be blocking the other however because of the farcical and manipilative algo now in place, no one can give you the definitive answer, not even Google.

[LinkedUp]

Thank you for the warm welcome and the quick replies, that makes it more clear for me!

And also thanks for the hint on how to write examples, I'll keep it in mind for further examples :)