Canada?

[grease]

Does anyone know what criteria google uses to decide whether a website is Canadian (or any other country for that matter). I have client from Canada that is listed in Google, but on Google.ca when i select 'find sites in canada' the site doesn't show up. The site has a .com domain and the server is California. Is this what google uses?

Grease

[cbp]

server is California. Is this what google uses?

Yes.

CBP

[grease]

cbc,

Just to clarify, are you saying that google looks at where the server is to decide whether or not a website is from Canada (or any other country)?

[cbp]

My best guess/understanding is that Google uses an algorithm to determine where a site is in response to a regional search query.

The algo might include:
1) IP location (ie in Canada)
2) Regional TLD (ie .ca)
3) Optimized for region (eg Canada is targeted a keyword)

If this is the case then it is extremely heavily weighted towards (1). Sometimes a .ca domain gets it in and very occasionaly an page optimized for the region gets in.

CBP

[Duncan Pollock]

I have a .com URL, my host is a local one (St. Catharines, Ontario), and I certainly show a geographical address and provide content that's decidedly Canadian (even, ha, ha, in its "our" [vs "or"] spelling!).
But how and why Google includes me in its "pages from Canada" I don't know, because I have to say that I also show up in results if I simply search "the web".
My guess is that the key lies in the site content most of all. Somewhere the geographical location has to be apparent to the search engines and that alone is how a site appears.
If your client's site isn't showing, there must be something missing in the clues it's giving to the search engines as to its (bricks and mortar) whereabouts. I cannot perceive that its .ca URL makes a scrap of difference.

[ADAM Web Design]

http://www.google.ca/search?num=100&...cr%3DcountryCA

Your site is a Canadian site, as determined by Google.

I personally believe there are two factors besides those which cbp has mentioned (the TLD being first and foremost IMHO):

1) Listing in DMOZ under a federal/provincial/municipal category.

2) Inbound links from sites that have a Canadian theme as determined by Google (somewhat along the lines of their "semantic web" concept.)

I don't think IP is a factor because resolving an IP to a geographic location isn't always accurate; for example, most AOL IPs geographically resolve to Virginia. I also have my server in Holly, Michigan and my site still qualifies as a Canadian site.

[T2DMan]

Originally Posted by ADAMWebDesign

I don't think IP is a factor because resolving an IP to a geographic location isn't always accurate; ... I also have my server in Holly, Michigan and my site still qualifies as a Canadian site.

ADAM - both the sites in your sig are .ca - you need either hosting in country, or TLD in country, to qualify for Google country.

Additional ways of getting in may be possible, but these are the main ones.

[Kenai Alaska]

If Google is using the hosting company as a factor in determining the location for a business, then they are missing the boat on the power of the internet. This is a global environment not limited by regions, borders, or political boundaries. You should feel free and unsuppressed in your desire to locate the hosting company that best suits your budget and offers the support you deserve. If Google is now penalizing you for doing so, They have taken away your individual freedom and limited the clientele of the hosting companies everywhere. No longer can you seek out your needs without taking Googles in consideration first. This doesn’t sit well.

[red]

This thread brings another question to mind.
Regardless of geographic location; if a site's tags (description and titles for instance) as well as some of the content contain phrases in more than one language will the site eventually be picked up naturally by foreign language search engines?
I just never thought about it before and am curious.
Thanks!

[David Pearson]

From my experience in Australia it is the regional TLD (.com.au) that got me onto yahoo and Google for "Australian" searches.

I had almost identical content on a .com website, even had "AUSTRALIA" in my title and my Australian address on my website and I was not picked up for "local searches".

Now my server is somewhere in the US, but my site www.misterballoons.com.au, comes up in "Australia only searches" on both Google and Yahoo.

So if you want to rank in "Canada only searches" go for the TLD .com.ca --- it worked for me on the other side of the world

Cheers .... Dave

[grease]

Thank you all for your insight.
My Client has a .ca domain as well. I will try submitting this to domoz, and report the results. By the way, the site has been optimized for locations within Canada, but not the country itself. We'll know shortly whether that is a factor.

Kenai Alaska - I couldn't agree with you more.

Cheers,

Grease

[jitender]

Hi there,

I think it's
first use the Regional TDL like .ca
next IP address location
and in last the keywords related to country

Regards
Jitender Kumar

[pburton]

This thread raises an interesting question; why would a non-US site choose to use .com, i.e. pretending to be USA when it is not.

Are there US search engines and/or directories that only accept .com ? I seem to remember that Thunderbird did this originally.

[cbp]

.com, i.e. pretending to be USA

Since when was .com exclusive to the USA?

CBP

[pedstersplanet]

Originally Posted by pburton

This thread raises an interesting question; why would a non-US site choose to use .com, i.e. pretending to be USA when it is not.

I've a .com too, which is a 301 redirect to my .co.uk domain.... I registered the .com to prevent idiots registering and abusing it, thats my reason for registering it...... And CBP is right, .com isn't just for America, that'll just be silly if it was :P

[ADAM Web Design]

Originally Posted by T2DMan

ADAM - both the sites in your sig are .ca - you need either hosting in country, or TLD in country, to qualify for Google country.

Additional ways of getting in may be possible, but these are the main ones.

Again, if you had read the entirety of what I had originally said, you would have realize that i had agreed with cbp on this issue. TLD is a factor. In fact, adamitpros.ca (which hasn't had any search engine campaigning run on it yet) is listed under Google as a Canadian site. It has no real Canadian backlinks either. So yes, .ca is a factor.

As far as the hosting issue goes, there are IP blocks (again, I revert to AOL for example, since it's the only one that immediately comes to mind) that do not accurately resolve to a geographic location. This also fails to take into account the rights of say a French company to host on a British server.

However, it's not the only factor. Going back to duncanpollock.com as an example (hope you don't mind, Duncan, but yours really does make the most sense to use):

http://www.google.ca/search?num=100&...lock.%2Bcom%22

There are a number of sites containing the term duncanpollock.com...including a number of websites that are clearly based in Canada or have a topical Canadian directory theme (including DMOZ in there somewhere, I think).

I'm going to try a little experiment the next time I see a Canadian directory: instead of using my .ca domain, as I usually do, I'll use my .com domain and see if it gets indexed as Canadian.

peterburton: in answer to your question (and in addition to the comments made already), my suggestion would be this: give a relative layman an email address of (something)@(something else).co.uk, and watch him/her type it in. At least half the time, he/she will type in .com. It's force of habit.

And fyi, .com originally stood for "commercial", and was never restricted to any one country.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by T2DMan

you need either hosting in country, or TLD in country, to qualify for Google country.

That's correct - a .com with hosting in Canada or a .ca hosted anywhere you wish.

[emils]

Here is my own experience on the matter.... I have my own servers here in my country (Romania - .ro TLD, Eastern Europe) so obviously they have an IP address belonging to our region. These are all .com sites and they are completely in English.

Here is what i noticed in several cases:

1. If the site does not specify the language <html lang="en"> then Google is very likely to assume the page is NOT in English even if having solely English content. In such a case, the page gets a terribly bad listing on Google because it only seems to respond to english queries coming from visitors from within our country or something like that

2. Any such site will initially get many hits from searches coming from within our country. However, as more pages get indexed and more and more english content gets indexed by google, this effect gets diluted more and more up to the point where local searches become very rare and the site becomes global, getting a fair share of hits from all countries.

3. There is also a continental effect - we do receive a lot of hits initially coming from other European countries, but as site gets indexed, this effect seems to dilute the same as #2 above. In the end, the site seems to receive the same 'globally spread' amount of hits as for example a us-hosted similar site would do.

4. This is also interesting. I have for example a customer with an us-hosted .com site which ranks #1 for some of his keywords on queries performed from within US. When i do the same query here, they are buried deep down somewhere in the result pages... almost like missing.

5. Inbound Links seem to have effect as well. As site gets inbound links from sites not in our country, the 'local' effect seems to dilute further.

So my own view over this is, IP address is definitely a factor but definitely others like site content comes into play as well and dilutes it.

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by grease

Thank you all for your insight.
My Client has a .ca domain as well. I will try submitting this to domoz, and report the results. By the way, the site has been optimized for locations within Canada, but not the country itself. We'll know shortly whether that is a factor.

Kenai Alaska - I couldn't agree with you more.

If your client has just one physical website, it's best to install it on the .ca domain, then just have the .com point to the .ca form the registrar.

That's what I've begun doing with some clients recently. (Advising them to switch to the .ca from a .com)

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by grease

Thank you all for your insight.
My Client has a .ca domain as well. I will try submitting this to domoz, and report the results. By the way, the site has been optimized for locations within Canada, but not the country itself. We'll know shortly whether that is a factor.

That's the ideal, I think -- If both the .com and .ca versions are available, buy both and point them to the same website - many people still assume a .com address and will look for that first.