Listed in .co.uk, but not in .com?

[se4rchsiren]

I have a problem with Google UK.

The website in question is aimed at a UK audience but uses a .com domain rather than co.uk for all promotional activity. The co.uk domain is just one page (the same content as the .com) and then all sub domains go to the .com domain.

The .com site currently has over 30,000 pages listed on Google.com but is not listed in google.co.uk. The co.uk site is listed.

I have other sites that use both the .com and co.uk domain, but promote the .com over the co.uk, but the .com site appears on Google UK and google.com.

I know the site in question is hosted in the USA, would this be causing the problem?

Can anyone advise me why Google UK is doing this? I know Google UK prefers UK specific domains but it should still be listing the .com site in the UK index, shouldn't it?

If you can help, please let me know.

Thanks

SearchSiren

[Black Knight]

I have been having the same problem with one of my clients. Even though they are listed in the UK regional categories of the ODP, (and thus Google's own directory) they are not recognised as a UK site when searching for pages from the UK only.

This is not an automatic for all .com sites however, because other .com sites, including a couple of rivals, are listed as UK only pages.

I've emailed Google twice asking for guidance on how to correct this, but naturally have had no reply. I just want to know what the company needs to do to correct the error/lack of recognition.

[tigger]

The Hosting is the issuse, you really need to get the site hosted over here.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person thats collecting auto responce emails from Google :(. I wonder if they ever reply?

[se4rchsiren]

thanks Black Knight and Tigger

It is so frustrating, I wouldn't mind if Google used the same criteria for all sites- we also have competitors using .com and are achieving top 10 positions! Google UK uses are really missing out on a valuable resource-

<snip>

Re: the hosting- the company is a multi-national and their IT and web hosting facility is in the US. Does Google look at the IP addresses and determines if the site is US or UK specific? I thought Google would also look at the content?

[edited by: NFFC at 1:26 pm (utc) on Nov. 8, 2002]
[edit reason] As per charter [/edit]

[aek]

Tigger is right. Google uk uses ip address to determine whether it is a uk site. You need to change to a uk host.

[clickclick]

IMHO The physical location of the hosting of the server is not as important as the registration details of the IP. But as most sites have an IP based upon local providers of IP ranges, the chances are that a US host will use a US IP. Try these tools to look up your site IP

[ripe.net...] - European Lookup

[ws.arin.net...] - US Lookup

[shady]

It would make sense for google to check yahoo/dmoz for US hosted sites. With UK bandwidth charges being so high, more and more UK sites are hosted in the US and many clients prefer to use a .com!

[Chris_R]

Does google do this for all countries? I keep hearing about the UK, but not sure if I recall any others mentioned.

I have heard webhosting prices are outlandish in Australia for instance - so I would assume many there would host in the US.

[Receptional]

We have a similar issue with one site which is not on our servers. But it IS hosted in Telco House (London) and all our own checks about where the web THINKS the ip number relates to confirms a UK ip number.

Ours, too, is a .com domain targeted at a UK audience.

Infact, it does really well in Australia's Google... useless but interesting.

Dixon.

[se4rchsiren]

Black Knight- are your .com sites hosted in the US?

I'm trying to figure out if it is the IP address causing the problem- but the co.uk site is hosted in the same place as the .com so surely that would not be listed in the UK only pages? but it is?

If the whole .com site was replicated on the co.uk domain would that help? or would Google see that it was the same information as the .com and think that it was just dupicaticated information and therefore not list it either.

[Chris_R]

I think (and this is just from the comments - not from myknowledge) that it works like this:

if site is co.uk - then google thinks it is a uk site.

or

if site is .com -- then google checks the ip AND
if ip is from uk - then google thinks it is a uk site.

[ciml]

That's right Chris. A .uk address or an IP recognised by Google as UK is enough. If you have one, you don't need the other.

Occasionally people run into the problem that a server in the UK looks to Google like it's on a non UK IP address. Although I've not researched geolocation, there does seem to be a view that Google do it very well (not that I'm infavour of it).

[quiet_man]

We have the same problem in Ireland, where .ie domains are four times more expensive than .com, and registration is a real pain (submission of company documents etc).
The bigger question is what searchers will make of it. I understand that one of the main reasons Google wants to provide regional listings is so it can sell regionally targeted advertising (adwords etc). But what do searchers want? If the search results for a UK-based search (or Irish-based search) leave out a significant number of local sites simply because the webmaster preferred a cheaper .com domain name, or cheaper US-based hosting, will users start to use Google.com or even switch to other search engines? In my opinion, the search quality is being affected by this policy, and this cannot be good for Google in the long run.