Forum Moderators: mack
In order to achieve rankings in Google.co.uk, early this year we moved our website (.biz domain) from a US registered IP address to a UK registered IP address.
Initially things worked wonderfully, and we managed to get good rankings on Google.co.uk. We were already well ranked on MSN.co.uk (beta) so I expected this to improve.
However, a few weeks later, our MSN.com results worsened slightly, and our MSN.co.uk dropped dramatically (from 1st page to about page 15). Also, when you check the 'UK Only' results, our website has disappeared completely from the listings - even when searching for our own domain name.
I have contacted MSN and they have finally acknowledged that there is a problem at their end, and they have agreed to investigate this issue, but several weeks later, I still cannot get a response from them.
The only clue to this problem is that some IP Location tools cannot identify the location of our new IP address, and I am suspecting that MSN cannot either.
Just to clarify, I have made sure that our new IP address is definitely located in the UK. This was verified on Ripe.Net.
Any ideas on how I can fix this as I need the traffic from the UK? Does anyone know which geomapping database MSN uses - maybe I can try and get the problem fixed at the source.
Many thanks in advance.
I have even tried cloaking and redirecting msnbot to a com.au TLD, but so far without success :( Would love to know how msn does its regional mapping.
The only clue to this problem is that some IP Location tools cannot identify the location of our new IP address, and I am suspecting that MSN cannot either.I don't have a high opinion of the skills and expertise of Microsoft's search people. (Just to get that out of the way first. :) )
Just to clarify, I have made sure that our new IP address is definitely located in the UK. This was verified on Ripe.Net.Well RIPE uses its full WHOIS database to check. Most attempts at IP geolocation use the delegated lists of IP ranges rather than the bigger RIPE/ARIN etc WHOIS databases. These are the big IP lists of IPs allocated and are public. Many of these large ranges contain smaller nets allocated to other countries. It is one of the biggest reasons for errors in geolocation.
Another approach to geolocation is to correlate websites to countries based on nameservers. In mathematical terms, this reduces the amount of processing required for geolocation from approximately 25 million website IPs to geolocation for about 680,000 hosters/nameservers.
Any ideas on how I can fix this as I need the traffic from the UK? Does anyone know which geomapping database MSN uses - maybe I can try and get the problem fixed at the source.Did you check the IPs of the nameservers for your domain? Knowing Microsoft, they've probably used some homegrown solution that can't take into account that some subnets will have more than one associated country.
Regards...jmcc
Thanks for your feedback. Just checked IP addresses of nameservers, and they are located in the US!
However, I have checked some sites that are successfully listed on msn.co.uk, and there are some websites that have a UK based Hosting IP address and US based Nameserver IP address. So I am reluctant to change nameservers just at this stage.
But if I don't get any response from msn on this issue in the next few days, then I will try it.
Regards Biglink
However, I have checked some sites that are successfully listed on msn.co.uk, and there are some websites that have a UK based Hosting IP address and US based Nameserver IP address. So I am reluctant to change nameservers just at this stage.
These weren't .co.uk domains by any chance were they?
I would imagine your .biz domain has to have UK name servers (assuming this is the problem) whereas .co.uk is clearly aimed at the UK market anyway.
