google .uk .au .fr

ranking internationally

[chris]

Hi, do people in the UK use the google.co.uk
search engine?

i would like to appear in the result for different countries
because i sell internationally. what would be the best way
to achieve that. i was wondering would the best approach
be to buy a .co.uk domain and it would be the same
as my .com and then trade links with uk websites?

also if i have a .co.uk website that is for UK
but is the same that my .com will google think i'm trying to cheat with duplicate websites.

thank you

[allanp73]

Visit the UK version and you'll see you are already listed there. The different country versions of Google all use the same index. However, if the user chooses to search only local sites you will disappear. To avoid this you would have to build different sites for each country (avoiding the duplication penalty) and their host them in that country or register then in that country.

[jamsy]

do people in the UK use the google.co.uk

Yes

i was wondering would the best approach be to buy a .co.uk domain and it would be the same as my .com and then trade links with uk websites

Yes, but i would also have the site hosted in the UK just to ensure any future changes on how google filters.

Currently the aol.co.uk engine takes Googles results and just strips out the .com .net etc and leaves just .co.uk domains.

will google think i'm trying to cheat with duplicate websites

Yes with identical content Google will more often than not penalise the one with lower pagerank.

So make some amendments to site content and structure, place it on .co.uk domain and then get it hosted over here and you SHOULD in theory be returned as a uk website.

[jamsy]

allanp73 - i must learn to type faster LOL

[JudgeJeffries]

I have a similar problem in so far as I wish to appear in the UK regional results and also in Australian regional results. The content will be almost the same as 80% is medical info. and cannot be messed about with. How on earth can I avoid duplication and still get into both regional results without spamming

[Receptional Andy]

In theory, what you can do is buy a .co.uk domain name, but host the site in Australia, on a server Google recognises as being Australia-based. This way, you will appear in Google.co.uk by default with your .co.uk, but Google's IP location will also locate you in Australia, and put you in those serps. I know this type of scenario already exists.

However, this would have the downside that people in Australia might be less likely to visit the site because it is .co.uk

You could also do the reverse and host a .com.au in the UK, I guess it depends on who you are targeting most.