Varied Google Rankings Based on Location

[roychuk]

I'm seeing some strange behavior on Google rankings:

Let me start off by saying I'm currently outside of the US. I managed to get on the first page for some high-competition keywords, but the traffic was low so I investigated, and to my surprise found out that though I'm seeing first page results on google dot com while not in the US, if I switch over to google while in the US...I'm not on the first page!

How could that be?

I found this to be true for a few of my websites, and I'm stumped. Could it be that my backlinks are not on US websites? Most of the actually are, but who knows, maybe they're hosted overseas...

Anyone care to address this anomaly?

 

[IMATA]

It's not an anomaly ,really. If you want to see what someone in the US sees in Google you need to use a US proxy.

Google listings, according to my experience, depend on:

1- Which google you access (an international google.com is not the same as google.ca, for example)

2- Where you access google from

3- Which servers your site is hosted at (better if they are US servers in your case)

4- Backlinks from sites who also rank high on the US version of google.com, considering points 1-3 and other on-site factors.

If anyone has a different input on this, I'd love to hear it.

The best of luck to you

 

[roychuk]

Well, here's the thing:

My website is based on US servers, and backlinks are from the US. I recently updated my website from overseas and had backlinks done by someone who's not from the US.

Question is, how do I climb the rankings now in the US, where the main market is for the KWs?

 

[IMATA]

It's not really important where you do your optimizing stuff from (not that I'm aware of, anyway), but where sites are located.

Obviously, you have stronger competition from US sites geared towards US traffic. What I'd do is get myself a good US proxy and check competition from the first 2-4 pages in Google for your main KWs. Check their backlink profiles and try to emulate. If you could get backlinks from them, all the better. Also, do whatever Backlink strategies work for you, giving priority to US based sites and checking their google US rankings. Also, most of the biggest web 2.0 sites and article directories are us based, so that's always good. That's not to say that links from sites based elsewhere are bad at all; I'd just see what google US loves and give it to itself.

Good luck to you.

 

[roychuk]

Thanks imata, just FYI, you don't need a US proxy, you can just add &gl=us at the end of the URL of the google search results to see US results

 

[IMATA]

Thanks imata, just FYI, you don't need a US proxy, you can just add &gl=us at the end of the URL of the google search results to see US results

Hey, thanks for that. It is pretty handy and it seems to keep the US version when you look for a second KW, etc.

Thanks again!

 

[amsterdamned]

Indeed, it's most likely the location that you target (you can also set this in gwebmastertools). Some differentiation I have also noticed based on the personalisation that G implemented but that doesn't differ all that mutch in my experience.

 

[Twats]

open one account at google webmaster tools, verify your website with them and TELL GOOGLE that you are targeting US traffic(they have one option there for that purpose), that's all you have to do

hope this helps