Trying to work out foreign googles

Paul B · #1 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 03:11 AM

I have a client who is based in Australia and Australia is his market, thus he rightly feels results in google.com.au are most important to him. However, he is having difficulty getting in the Australian Google, but not Google.com.

I guess there are a couple of factors that will help and hinder this.

1) A .com.au domain name as opposed to a .com

2) where the site is hosted - but it appears many Australian hosts have their servers in the USA

Which of the above is critical? 1) or 2) or both? And are there more factors?

Thanks

cbp · #2 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 03:36 AM

(2) is critical.

Quote:

but it appears many Australian hosts have their servers in the USA

Most don't. Only the cheap ones do.
CBP

Faglork · #3 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 04:09 AM

Hmm. Did you set your LANGUAGE tag accordingly?

Code:

<meta name="language" content="en-au" />

would be proper, as AU is the corresponding ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code element:
http://tinyurl.com/btkp

With XHTML you could use

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"; xml:lang="en-au" lang="en-au">

I have tested this with DE and EN and it works, I have no idea if it works with alpha-2 elements.

I do not see why the location of the server should be critical. After all, if I decide to make a site in french, why should I rent a server in France?? For every different language version of my site a server in another country??

There are proper ways to identify the language of an HTML document, and this alone should count.

From where did you get the "fact" that the location of the site is "critical"?

Greetings,
Alex

Paul B · #4 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 04:35 AM

Faglork - thanks for your prompt reply. I have added the language reference to the code and we shall see what happens.

Incidentally the W3 validator didn't like the ';' in:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"; xml:lang="en-au" lang="en-au">
So I omitted it.

I did not say server location was a "fact" or "critical", but guessed it may be a "factor" and asked which was critical.

Thanks again.

cbp · #5 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 04:39 AM

For Google.com.au, server location is critical.

CBP

Faglork · #6 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 05:16 AM

a) from where do you get that
b) why?

cbp · #7 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 05:19 AM

I am in Australia. About half my sites are hosted here and all of them show in google.com.au. The other half are hosted outside Australia (a couple have .au extension) and none of them show in google.com.au

CBP

Paul B · #8 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 05:58 AM

This is interesting info, thanks CBP!

Looking at google.com.au and selecting 'Pages from Australia', it appears that there are many more .com.au pages listed than .coms. Is this because there are simply far more .com.au sites in Australia than .com ones? Or is Google.com.au giving priority to com.au domains?

My client has his brand in both .com and .com.au domains. It would seem that the .com.au domain should be the main one and the .com a 303 refer. At present it is the other way round - and hosting is outside Australia.

cbp · #9 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 06:02 AM

All my .com's hosted in Australia, show up for "pages from Australia" on google.com.au

CBP

Paul B · #10 (**permalink**) 06-30-2005, 02:08 AM

Thanks again to all for the input. For the record and future searches on this, my experience is with Swiss .ch sites, .com and Swiss and UK hosting, which is as follows:

Google rates the domain extension not where the site is hosted. Thus a search for - playgroup adliswil - in google.ch will get www.mctots.ch as #1 of 9(!). This site is hosted in the UK.. It also appears in google.com for the same search.

BUT

Search for - Swiss DVD rental - in google.ch and www.SwissDVDrental.com is not there - despite being hosted in Switzerland. But it does appear in Google.com - as #1

ALSO

mctots.ch is in German & English, but Swissdvdrental.com is only in English. So another site that is only in German, with a .ch TLD and hosted in the UK. A search for - Kirchgemeinden orchester Stadt Zürich - in google.ch get kgo.ch #1 and google.com

Conclusions?

I'm confused! Seems to me that the domain is important to get into google.ch NOT where it is hosted. However there are quite a number of .com TLD sites in google.ch...

Would I be right is saying that google.com.au and google.ch do not work on the same algorithm??

incrediblehelp · #11 (**permalink**) 06-30-2005, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbp

All my .com's hosted in Australia, show up for "pages from Australia" on google.com.au

CBP

Outside you own experiences do you find this true for other websites (clients, friends, etc)?

cbp · #12 (**permalink**) 06-30-2005, 10:37 PM

IMHO, Google appears to use the location of the host as the main critiera. Occasionally the domain extension appears to be taken into account.

From what I recall, every Australian site I have checked, it was 100% host location was the determinant.

If, I recall correctly, the host location was no as important for Google.ca .... so there may be regional differences.

CBP

incrediblehelp · #13 (**permalink**) 06-30-2005, 10:50 PM

Do you see the same thing in other countries like the UK?

cbp · #14 (**permalink**) 06-30-2005, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Do you see the same thing in other countries like the UK?

There was a controversy a while back in which a major UK host (can't recall which one) hosted all their sites somewhere in Europe (Germany, I think) - none of them showed up in google.co.uk for pages "from UK" - even the ones with .uk extensions.

CBP

David Pearson · #15 (**permalink**) 07-01-2005, 07:13 PM

G'Day.

The only thing that seems to make a differrence is the axtension .au --- check out my own website www.misterballoons.com.au it is hosted in the US but rates highly in www.google.com.au [try the term balloon twister on "pages from Australia"]

As for

Quote:

Looking at google.com.au and selecting 'Pages from Australia', it appears that there are many more .com.au pages listed than .coms. Is this because there are simply far more .com.au sites in Australia than .com ones? Or is Google.com.au giving priority to com.au domains?

you have to understand that there has been reasonably tight restrictions on getting a .au domain, and there has been media promotion [in the past] in Australia to the effect that .au domains are "more trustworthy" because you are dealing with an actuall company or existing entity not just anyone who registered a domain. So if anyone, like myself, wants to do business in Australia it has been important for rankings and credibillity to have a .au extension.

Another reason that the .au domains are so popular here in Australia is that it has been recognized by the Australian public as a guide to finding products and services that are already "on our doorstep" and not half way around the world. This makes after sales service seem more readilly available, and saves purchasers from the imposition of "duties" as their purchase arrives in the Australia, and of course shipping time and costs are greater from the US than from say Sydney.

gunnarwho · #16 (**permalink**) 07-01-2005, 10:58 PM

Well, my sites have a combine Google ranking of 0, so I have hired an SEO company to help me out.

Their first and very strong recommendation was to change to a host with servers in Australia.

I might need a bit more than that though,

cheers,

ozchris · #17 (**permalink**) 07-01-2005, 11:46 PM

Wow, CBP, didn't know you were in OZ!

Agree with your statement, server location is crucial.

I has an email correspondence with Google a few months back asking about this, and they told me server location is it. Here is their exact reply, from 3/3/05:
---------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your note. We understand that your site is not appearing as a search result for "pages from Australia." While all sites in our index
return for searches restricted to "the web," only sites hosted in each country will display as search results for pages from that country. If you
would like your site to be returned in this country-restricted search, we recommend that you have your site hosted in Australia. Note that domain
extensions (.com or .com.au) have no effect on whether your site will return for a particular county restrict.

Regards,
The Google Team
-----------------------------------------

I admit I don't have any .com.au (for cost reasons), and all my sites are hosted with one Canadian hosting company. I am so happy with their support I can't bring myself to change, but if I was starting over again I would use Australian-based servers.

Look carefully at the company you choose to buy from - even ones with the words "Australia" and "host" in the name aren't necessarily hosted here. Read the fine print - the last one I looked at was based in Texas.

Even having Australia in my domain registration details, and Australia in the domain name, doesn't sway local Google.

Yahoo Local is much more forgiving - I am listed well there for the same sites.

MSN seems halfway - I'm listed in Australia (ninemsn.com.au) but not as highly as I am in msn.com.

So yes, use Australian servers if it is vitally important.

cheers
Chris

kservik · #18 (**permalink**) 07-02-2005, 04:49 PM

Listen to cbp on this subject. He is 100% right. Server location (IP) is very important in Google.

Needabed · #19 (**permalink**) 07-04-2005, 05:51 AM

I think the hosting is definitely more important than the ext of the domain.

I have an italian site hosted in Germany and it is doing well in google.it and it comes up in msn.de and google.de as well withouth having a word in german..

fernimac · #20 (**permalink**) 07-06-2005, 11:44 AM

I absolutely agree with CBP. We work for Spanish real estate clients whose market is in the UK (britons are their target) and we have a hard time trying to get their pages indexed under google.co.uk. Also, you have to take into account that there are different laws that affect how you can get personal information from your visitors and what you can do with it. The law that applies is the one in which the database is hosted, not the country where you run your business in.

Fernando.

fernimac · #21 (**permalink**) 07-06-2005, 11:50 AM

I absolutely agree with CBP. We work for Spanish real estate clients whose market is in the UK (britons are their target) and we have a hard time trying to get their pages indexed under google.co.uk. Also, you have to take into account that there are different laws that affect how you can get personal information from your visitors and what you can do with it. The law that applies is the one in which the database is hosted, not the country where you run your business in.

Fernando.

amerindianarts · #22 (**permalink**) 07-06-2005, 09:42 PM

I have been trying to register my domain with an .au extension but I have to have an Australian Business Number?? How does a stateside retail company do this?

Sergio Simarro · #23 (**permalink**) 07-07-2005, 07:00 AM

Hi!

I agree with everybody talking about finding a hosting provider into the targeting country.

But I think this is one factor more affecting the Google criteria. For competitive keywords, it is becoming necessary to find a local hosting (and although finding a .destination-country domain). But it is not mandatory in all cases.

But remember, it is just a factor more playing the game.

And one question, which tools are all you using to determine the country into which the web site is hosted?

Good luck and kind regards.

Sergio Simarro · #24 (**permalink**) 07-07-2005, 08:31 AM

Here a friend has advice me to use this one:
http://www.irnis.net/soft/xipl/

Thanks Kayak-Man!

kservik · #25 (**permalink**) 07-07-2005, 12:12 PM

Here is all the IP/DNS tools you will ever need:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/

Sergio Simarro · #26 (**permalink**) 07-08-2005, 03:32 AM

Thanks kservik!
Kind regards.

kservik · #27 (**permalink**) 07-08-2005, 03:42 AM

Your welcome!

:-)
Kim

Faglork · #28 (**permalink**) 07-20-2005, 03:15 AM

Let Google speak for themselves:

Quote:

4. I'd like my site to return for pages from a specific country.

While all sites in our index return for searches restricted to "the web," we draw on a relevant subset of sites for each country restrict. Our crawlers may identify the country for a site by factors such as the physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address, the WHOIS information for a domain, and its top-level domain.

That said, your site's top-level domain doesn't need to match the country domain for which you'd like it to return. It's also important to keep in mind that our crawlers don't index duplicate content, so creating identical sites at several domains will likely not result in their returning for many country restricts. If you do create duplicate domains, we suggest using a robots.txt file to block our crawler from accessing all but your preferred one.

Taken from
http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmas...q.html#country

minstrel · #29 (**permalink**) 07-20-2005, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbp

IMHO, Google appears to use the location of the host as the main critiera. Occasionally the domain extension appears to be taken into account.

From what I recall, every Australian site I have checked, it was 100% host location was the determinant.

If, I recall correctly, the host location was no as important for Google.ca .... so there may be regional differences.

As I've said before, my experience with google.ca is that one of two things is rquire:

1. either you have a .ca extension, in which case you can host the site anywhere you want;

2. or you have a non-regional extension (.com, .org. .net), in which case you must have the site hosted in Canada

Paul B · #30 (**permalink**) 07-21-2005, 05:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by faglork

Let Google speak for themselves:

Quote:

4. I'd like my site to return for pages from a specific country.

While all sites in our index return for searches restricted to "the web," we draw on a relevant subset of sites for each country restrict. Our crawlers may identify the country for a site by factors such as the physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address, the WHOIS information for a domain, and its top-level domain.

That said, your site's top-level domain doesn't need to match the country domain for which you'd like it to return. It's also important to keep in mind that our crawlers don't index duplicate content, so creating identical sites at several domains will likely not result in their returning for many country restricts. If you do create duplicate domains, we suggest using a robots.txt file to block our crawler from accessing all but your preferred one.

Taken from
http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmas...q.html#country

So does Google contradict itself?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozchris

I has an email correspondence with Google a few months back asking about this, and they told me server location is it. Here is their exact reply, from 3/3/05:
---------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your note. We understand that your site is not appearing as a search result for "pages from Australia." While all sites in our index
return for searches restricted to "the web," only sites hosted in each country will display as search results for pages from that country. If you
would like your site to be returned in this country-restricted search, we recommend that you have your site hosted in Australia. Note that domain
extensions (.com or .com.au) have no effect on whether your site will return for a particular county restrict.

Regards,
The Google Team
-----------------------------------------
<snip>

This is as clear as mud!

"Note that domain extensions (.com or .com.au) have no effect on whether your site will return for a particular county restrict."

OK, so how come .com.au domains hosted in the US - which many are for economic reasons are - appear in 'pages from Australia'?

It seems to me that the Austalian Google rule is:
For sites to appear under 'pages from Austalia' they must be either:

1) a .com or .com.au hosted in Australia or
2) a .com.au hosted in Australia or US (and perhaps other countries)

However this rule does not necessarily apply for domains within Europe...

minstrel · #31 (**permalink**) 07-21-2005, 10:47 AM

I don't know about that email from Google -- is this one YOU received?

As to the rest of it, the official Google statement complies with my experience (albeit not extensive experience) with .ca and .uk sites.

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