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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    81

    * UK Domain + UK Host = Nowhere on Google.com (is there any point?)

    This just sucks!

    I have been researching SEO for a couple of years now, so based on what I have learnt I decided to do the following to improve our natural search engine positions.

    - Use a UK domain, and 301 redirect .com/etc to .co.uk
    - Use a UK host
    - 301 redirect [domain.co.uk] -> [www.domain.co.uk]
    - Set headers, meta tags, and xml tag for content-language: en_GB
    - Set Geo Position and ICBM meta tags
    - Setup sitemap.xml and use Google webmaster tools
    - Redevelop the entire website from scratch.

    This worked wonders for the Google.co.uk search results, before we weren't even in the first 200 - the old website only managed to get traffic by spending a **** load of money on Adwords. Now for most of the search terms we check on Google.co.uk we are in the first 10, some are even 3rd or 4th, really happy with that considering the new website has only been live 3 months.

    For the same search terms most of our competitors are on the first page of Google.com too, but we aren't even in the top 250! What the ****? These websites are for UK companies offering the same service as us to customers in the UK only. It seems that any competitor with a .co.uk domain doesn't get listed on Google.com, and any with the .com domain are on the first page of Google.com and Google.co.uk. Eh?

    The service we are offering is training of OGC frameworks, whilst this is internationally recognised training, the majority of training companies operate in the UK - so it's not as if we have lots of competition from other countries on the Google.com search results.

    You may argue that this isn't a big deal, Google directs UK visitors to Google.co.uk - but it doesn't do it very well! I use Fedora Linux on my laptop, and when searching in firefox I get the Google.com results, it also doesn't redirect me from Google.com to Google.co.uk. This seems to indicate Google just checks the user-agent/language for british english - so this could happen to quite a few users who didn't set this or downloaded a US browser.

    I have now seen a US host that looks ideal, Mosso, and we have a .com domain. Would I be bonkers to switch to this?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,861
    I'm no SEO expert but we're ranking on the first page of google.com for some keywords, we're using a .co.uk with our servers in the UK.

  3. #3
    Build some links using the free directories and anchor text that matches your title tag and then watch your site hop and skip though the rankings. Keep doing it month in, month out and you will get to #1, no sweat.


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Hong Kong+Toronto
    Posts
    1,254

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    vienna, austria
    Posts
    61
    Quote Originally Posted by luke_a View Post
    ...It seems that any competitor with a .co.uk domain doesn't get listed on Google.com, and any with the .com domain are on the first page of Google.com and Google.co.uk. Eh?
    .co.uk google like any other national oriented google is concentrating on that specific language/country. Also the physical location of the server comes into play in this. Although it is not necessary. You already described what you have done to improve your ranking in UK google and it worked out pretty well. Remember, you set it to en_GB. And this is the main criteria for UK google.

    Now, when you go to .com you get the rankings from the whole world. And you are somewhere there. If not in top 10, than somewhere else. There are lots of software which can pick the rankings for you. Instead of looking through results by yourself you can have the software find your ranking. I do expect that .com might be somewhat US biased, but don't know that for sure.

    With the music charts you have the same behavior - you can have Pet Shop Boys ranking 5th in UK and nowhere in top 100 in US. Where at the same time you can have Britney Spears in both US and UK top 10.

    Apparently there are lots of SEO heavyweights for your keywords which are outside UK. So, once you leave UK and look for your keyword internationally all of those heavyweights come before you. The fact that some of them also appear in UK google is probably because they either have lots of backlinks (either honest backlinks from blogs and forums or bought links) from UK. On the other hand, google is also language driven, so your competitors from US get ranked in UK google even if they don't have backlinks simply due to the fact their sites are of the same language - en.

    I run a german speaking site from US server and it has specified de_DE for language. For its keywords it ranks high in German google as well in other German speaking googles like Austrian and Swiss due to the fact it is the same language of interest.

    Hope this helps!

  6. #6
    I have never bothered with the local google search and was shocked rigid when I discovered I couldn't get a .com into the UK rankings by tweaking the title tag. So that's something I need to do some home work on as it is a complicaton. However co.uk domains should rank easily enough in Google.com if you build enough back links. Its a numbers game and it does not have to be expensive. What it does take though is time and perseverance.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    vienna, austria
    Posts
    61

    Lightbulb

    Luke, you were not specific about your keywords, the only thing you mentioned was OGC Frameworks training.

    I had a look at both 'OGC Frameworks training' and 'OGC Framework training' and I got 35.000 and 20.000 results from google.com which is pretty low. In both cases .gov.uk were the top results.

    Rainchild is saying right - you need to beef up your links. Given the fact that there are so few results it should not be a big problem.

    I don't know exactly what OGC topic is about, seeing that there is ogc.gov.uk makes me think that there are lots of institutional sites which might give you a hard time. Google weights .gov, wikipedia, social media sites and links from them extremely high. I also assume that some of your competitors are these institutions themselves and you almost can not beat them. Further if some of your competitors are getting links from these strong institutions you could also have hard time beating them as well.

    Nonetheless, you need links, not a blank .com. Try getting links to your site. Look if there is some article on wikipedia on OGC topic. If possible, try to get a link from them (suggest addition of a link to your site if you offer further information there). If there is not much information about OGC at wikipedia, write an article about it and add a link to your site! This would be a major SEO boost.

    Try getting the links from .gov sites.
    Submit your link to DMOZ.org
    It is also highly valued by google. Nonetheless they are very restrictive and only accept quality links. Same with wikipedia.

    Further, submit your links to delicious, facebook, twitter and all major social media.

    All this would help a lot, depending what you manage to get.

    If you fail in this, you can hire some SEO guru and they would hook you up with either 500 or 50k+ backlinks. This would cost you $500 upwards. If everything goes well you would be ranking among top 3 in matter of few weeks, if something goes wrong, you could get penalized by google. In this case you would get something like 50 ranks drop or a complete drop for about half a year.

    You can go to linking services like Linkworth.com and spend more money but you wouold get pretty good quality. You can hire a reputable blogger who would publish a review of your site in his blog and also link to you. This is the most cost intensive task and yet by far not as valuable as a .gov or wikipedia or dmoz link. Try to get these at first!

    I hope this helps!

    PS: there is a large number of decent, reliable SEO gurus which could fix you without paying a fortune and also not exposing your site to some big risk.

    PPS: I have not seen a single wikipedia result which makes me think that there might be no articles on this topic. This would be great for you! Either write some articles on your own or hire someone to do this and submit it to wikipedia. Also don't cover the whole topic. Write some introduction and submit a link to your site with further details.

    That would do miracles!

    Hope this helps!
    Last edited by andria; 04-19-2009 at 01:42 AM.

  8. #8
    @andria I thought wikipedia was no followed? Am I wrong?

    I think it would be a mistake to rush into this. Do it right and start by learning how to do it yourself first. Thereafter take a few more baby steps until you have a reasonable idea of what you are doing and what's needed. We are running a workshop thread here and you could try submitting your site to the two dozen or so directories which were still accepting submissions. Before you do this however you need to decide what search term you want to target, make sure it appears in your title tag then once that's done submit it as the link title. You then wait three weeks, let us know which ones didn't accept your site or which ones are no longer free and then check to see where your site appears in the search results.
    Last edited by rainchild; 04-19-2009 at 02:03 AM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    vienna, austria
    Posts
    61
    Quote Originally Posted by rainchild View Post
    @andria I thought wikipedia was no followed? Am I wrong?
    Technically you are right. Wikipedia like most of other social services and forums is using no follows.

    Yet, Google knows these are very valuable sources and indicators for good, honest and reliable human web-behavior so they weight these results extremely high.

    There are even strategies how to build a successful Delicious profile. For example you would at first add reputable sites like google, new york times, cnn and few days later you would continue with this. Than you would add your sites and so on. There are lots of social media sites which are/were supposed to have similar impact. Like technorati, stumble upon, diggit.... Most of them fail, but Delicious is a sure shot. BTW, they are also no follow

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    vienna, austria
    Posts
    61
    Quote Originally Posted by rainchild View Post
    @andria I thought wikipedia was no followed? Am I wrong?
    Just to make sure, yes, the links are technically marked as no follow, but Google DOES record those links. And values them extremly high. These are among the best and most valuable links you could desire for your website.

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