pages from australia

[peterpullar]

I was shocked to find out that most of my websites do show up in Google Search: the web, but not show up in Google searches for pages from Australia. I found this out when my brother said he could not find http://achancetowin.com/claudine_sings.htm
I had never thought about it before, but many of the people in Australia do their searches for pages from Australia to narrow down their selection. When they do that, they miss most of my websites Is there a way other than having a .au domain name to have them listed in pages from Australia?
If I added pages up on my .au website to get listed in searches from Australia, would I lose any of the listings I already get for my .au website?

[cbp]

The host's server has to be located in Australia if you want to show up in Australian searchers. Your host is based in North Carolina, USA.

A .au domain name usually will not show up unless on an Australian host (I have seen the odd exception, but unusual)

CBP

[peterpullar]

Thanks CBP for the info.
I am glad that I didnt move move all my websites to the cheaper web hosting outside Australia!
I had assumed that the webhosting that I use for achancetowin.com was Australian as they showed an Australian address and AU$ pricing.

[cbp]

This whole issue is a big one. There are several Australian "hosts" that are resllers for low priced USA hosts - I think they should state that and that if ranking in Google Australia is important then they should take anoher option.

Similarly, I have heard some Canadian websites complaining re not showing in Google.ca - they were on USA server. There was a case recently where a big UK host had all its servers based in Germany (or somewhere in Europe).

If I was Google I would use an algorithm for determining 'pages from region', but would probablly use too much computing power.
The algorithm would weight:
1) Server location (eg in Australia)
2) Domain name (eg .au)
3) Keywords (eg optimised for Australia)

Some have suggested that they may do something like this - but if they do, (1) is very heavily weighted.

The advantage of an algo as above would be that the "Australian" contact page for a major international company may show up in an australian search becasue of (3) - which to me is a good thing. Also your site could show up based on the use of the word Australia several times.

CBP

[Ozdachs]

Originally Posted by cbp

The host's server has to be located in Australia if you want to show up in Australian searchers.

Hmmm... cbp are you aware of a Google Australia policy on this? I have an client’s Australian site hosted in Australia show up high in Google US searches (or at least it showed up high until this month’s Google changes).

I would except a symmetrical policy, but maybe I am naïve. I would hope that Google would share its databases among its national engines. But, there would need to be a fudge factor so that Australians tended to receive Aussie businesses/results.

[Mel]

I believe there is a difference between the main google search engine at google.com and the regional search engines who give you a choice under the search bar of searching the entire web or searching only for pages from that country.

I would assume that all sites should be in the main google database, but a different database or algorithm would be used when searching for pages only from a country like Australia.

This is why the Australian site shows up in the google.com search but the US hosted sites do not show up when searching for only pages from Australia.

It is also interesting to note that the adwords results are different when searching from a local engine, as this is one of the options in Adwords.

[cbp]

show up high in Google US searches

There is no Google US. All sites can show up in searches at Google.com

CBP

[wealth42]

Originally Posted by cbp

The host's server has to be located in Australia if you want to show up in Australian searchers. Your host is based in North Carolina, USA.

A .au domain name usually will not show up unless on an Australian host (I have seen the odd exception, but unusual)

CBP

fyi: I have a US host with a .com.au domain, and I show up on both Google Australia and global for "website hire". I had been told that .com.au would only show on Aussie pages, but that turned out to be wrong.

[cbp]

So maybe Google are using some sort of algorithm - and the .au name is a factored in somehow. Several .com.au sites hosted overseas (including one of mine) do not show up in Australia searchers.

I have also heard someone suggest a regional listing in DMOZ also is factored in, but I do not beleive this.

CBP

[peterpullar]

Thanks everybody for the discussion. I value your input.
It seems that I can get around the problem at least partially by putting specially modified copies of some of the pages I want listed as pages from Australia, on my own personal website which is on Telstra Bigpond webhosting. Pages on my personal website get listed in Google searches:pages from Australia.
Would there be any disadvantage to doing this (apart from the obvious one of the domain name not being appropriate)? Would it adversely affect any of the existing listings that I already have on Google?

[cbp]

Just be careful re duplicate content penalty - make the content sufficiently different. Google got a new patent assigned in Dec for a method to detect "near duplicat" sites, which is wider than the previous duplicate sites that they drop sites for.

CBP

[wealth42]

Originally Posted by cbp

Just be careful re duplicate content penalty - make the content sufficiently different. Google got a new patent assigned in Dec for a method to detect "near duplicat" sites, which is wider than the previous duplicate sites that they drop sites for.

CBP

So can you submit a .com.au site and a plain .com site to Google and have the same content on both sites, if their domains ensure they will show up in different pages?

On that subject - is this url one way of ensuring being shown in regional and global results?
http://www.mackays.au.com/

[cbp]

So can you submit a .com.au site and a plain .com site to Google and have the same content on both sites, if their domains ensure they will show up in different pages?

Submitting to Google is a waste of time.

If Google finds both sites, one will be dropped from the index (usually the most recent one)

CBP

[Mel]

Originally Posted by wealth42

So can you submit a .com.au site and a plain .com site to Google and have the same content on both sites, if their domains ensure they will show up in different pages?

On that subject - is this url one way of ensuring being shown in regional and global results?
http://www.mackays.au.com/

No you cannot have the same content on different URLs without the possibility of attracting a penalty on one or both pages.

[Natj]

Hi Peter

I have all my domains on US servers, and they all show up on the google, "Australian Pages" search. I think the key may be to add the keyword Australia throughout your page, and you should show up?? Just a thought i am having enough troubles at the sec... no expert here.

[David Pearson]

G'Day.

You can tell already I'm from Australia.

I am hosting my new .au site on a US server, and I have no problems with showing results on www.google.com.au - I have some no.1 results for my search terms for .au searches, and since many Aussies prefer to search Australian pages for increased relevancy this is great. I have keywords for the geographical location anyway, but so did my .com site which NEVER returned results for an "Austalian" search, so it does seem that the .com.au domain is the winner for Aussie sites marketing to Aussies.
[/b]

[peterpullar]

While my .com.au site shows up on pages from Australia on both Yahoo and Google, my .com site shows up on pages from Australia on Google but not on Yahoo. Both those sites are hosted in Australia.
David you are probably right about the .com.au being worthwhile, and I may be able to use cheaper hosting for my next project after all.
Is CBP wrong, or does the inclusion of Australia cause the exceptions such as David's site? We may never know for sure!
Natj, Thanks for trying to help, but I don't know your websites so your info isn't much use to me.
I wonder how much I would need to spend on advertising on Google to get a site listed in pages from Australia? Would I lose any free listings by doing that?
Thanks CBP for the warning about duplicate sites. It leaves me worried how much of the same info I can put on the other site without penalty. Only a link, or some of the graphics, or a similar style?

[cbp]

More info in these recent hreads:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=15330
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=15346

CBP

[albatross2147]

I have posted the following on a couple of threads in the hope of generating a response - even if it's only "you're talking bulldust". What's worse than being told you are an idiot? Not getting feed back at all.

"Have the changes made by Google gone too far?

Previously, a client of ours, a home improvement business based in and serving this city was listed number one for the search: home extensions sydney

The other top results were relevant too.

Now the results (on both .com and .com.au) are either for wierd internet directories and totally irrelevant results.

It seems that our client is being penalised for having the words "extensions", "Sydney" and "home" incorporated in their site text etc.

If people can't get relevant results from their searches (even the Ad Words on the results page are a bit wonky) they will vote with their feet... errr mouses"

But getting back to the topic, it seems to me that the location of the server has little to do with the search results.

There does seem to be some bias in their .au SE (google.com.au)when you check the "pages from Australia? box but only for .au domains rather than the location of the server.

This has always seemed to me a failing by some one to understand the internationalism and ubitquity of the internet. .com and the other .gTLD domains were never intended just for US businesses.

Most Australian businesses who are on the net don't want to be invisible to international searches which they would be on some SEs if they had just a .au domain name. So they are forced to register at some expense a .au and gTLD domaiun name. Given that simple aliasing is not sufficeint to get listings for both domain names on the one server, should they be then forced to even more expense to develop two totally unique sites just to avoid being penalised for duplication?

As an aside the results on google.com.au for "pages from Australia" are often risible.

[cbp]

But getting back to the topic, it seems to me that the location of the server has little to do with the search results.

The location of the server has everything to do with it. It is by far the most powerful influence in determining pages from <region>. Just becasue a host is based in Australia does not mean the server is based here. I use 3 Australian hosts - one of them is just a resller for a USA company (server based there).

In 100's of eg's that I have investigated, the sites only show in Google's regional searches if they are hosted in the region, regardless of the domain extension (keeping in mind that the actual server may not be in the country of the host company) - of those 100's, there have only been no more than a few eg's in which this was not the case (Minstrel's eg in another thread is one of these eg's).

Can you give the URL of the site that you are talking about?

CBP

[albatross2147]

[quote="cbp"]

The location of the server has everything to do with it. It is by far the most powerful influence in determining pages from <region>. Just becasue a host is based in Australia does not mean the server is based here. I use 3 Australian hosts - one of them is just a resller for a USA company (server based there).

In 100's of eg's that I have investigated, the sites only show in Google's regional searches if they are hosted in the region, regardless of the domain extension (keeping in mind that the actual server may not be in the country of the host company) - of those 100's, there have only been no more than a few eg's in which this was not the case (Minstrel's eg in another thread is one of these eg's).
CBP

I understand what you are driving at but I can quote 100s of examples to the contrary. All our sites are hosted outside Australia but they score well quite often in "pages from Australia" searches on google.com.au

But in any event why does it matter where a site is physically hosted? I mean for a start it is possible to delegate a domain to several servers in several countries - which you might well do if the site was mission critical.

Also it defies logic that Google would spend a great deal of time, money and resources on doing look ups on server IPs which in any event would produce a high percentage of errors.

Further it could be construed as a restraint of trade under the Australian Trade Practices Act (which Google are subject to as they trade here) to exclude a business from a search simply because of the location of the server. There are many argunments as to why this would be so not the least of which is that Australian businesses should not be forced to use substandard, sloooow, and expensive Australian based hosting when cheaper and demonstrably better hosting is available(IANAL).

"Local search tools for local people" being pushed by some people is about as whacky as the League of Gentlemen. It defies the logic of the internet. If I go onto the internet to look for an expresso machine I don't really care if the supplier is in the next suburb or Penang or Timbuctoo. If I suspect that I need a supplier in my city or region I might put in a further search parameter in my search but that should be a decision I make. "Localising" along the lines that the Yellow Pages attempts to do and others are suggesting is the way of the future in search suddenly cuts out a lot of results that may be pertinent to me but are excluded by an arbitrary decision made by a machine about what is "local".

It should also be noted that most of the country specific SE projects that appeared '96 - '99 seem to have withered on the vine (I am not saying this is a good thing).

[peterpullar]

Thanks for the lively discussion. I am amazed how many people say the location of website hosting does not affect whether a site is shown under pages from Australia on Google. I have peterpullar.com and peterpullar.com.au hosted by Telstra who I believe hosts in Australia, and both sites appear in Google pages from Australia. Yet David Pearson's .au balloons site shows up on Google pages from Australia. He does have the word Australia at the end of the title of his main page.
Albatross, I don't know why it matters or how it happens, but it just does seem to have a significant effect. Apart from .au websites, it is my experience on all my own and my friends websites that the ones hosted in Australia come up on pages from Australia and those hosted elsewhere do not.
I am finding that, like it or not, lots of Australians use the Google selection of pages from Australia to narrow down their searches. I guess maybe people outside Australia experience Google the same as Australians do by logging on to google.com.au Or do they?
Also I was not aware of any .au domain names being invisible on international searches on search engines because of the .au Maybe it does happen, but I have never heard of it. Sure many international people may not want to have to remember the .au bit at the end, and it makes the domain name a bit longer which may be small disadvantages.

[albatross2147]

[quote="wealth42"]

Originally Posted by cbp

On that subject - is this url one way of ensuring being shown in regional and global results?
http://www.mackays.au.com/

".au.com domains" such as the one you have indicated are not second level or country domains. They are in fact sub-domains of a gTLD domain ie. au.com

au.com is licensed by an Australian company but as far as I know it is impossible for them to guarantee that "registrants" of the sub-domains will always be able to use their .au.com nane as someone, someday may establish a better right to use the au.com domain and may choose to discontinue any service provided to the users of .au.com sub-domains.

[albatross2147]

Originally Posted by peterpullar

I have peterpullar.com and peterpullar.com.au hosted by Telstra who I believe hosts in Australia, and both sites appear in Google pages from Australia.

Jeez PP that's a big call given that Telstra is moving jobs and infrastructure offshore.

Originally Posted by peterpullar

Also I was not aware of any .au domain names being invisible on international searches on search engines because of the .au Maybe it does happen, but I have never heard of it. Sure many international people may not want to have to remember the .au bit at the end, and it makes the domain name a bit longer which may be small disadvantages.

Well the parallel registration of domains in both .au and gTLD probably has more to about brand protection and risk management than ensuring listing on international search engines. But note how Alta Vista now has a "Search US" button on its international search and without any shred of evidence other than a few test searches I would say that even if your widgets are world exclusive a .au domain just might not be enough to get you a top 40 listing (the only ones that matter) for any given search. Also Overture seems to be moving to a country specific model - but that's not for discussion here.

Originally Posted by peterpullar

I don't know why it matters or how it happens, but it just does seem to have a significant effect. Apart from .au websites, it is my experience on all my own and my friends websites that the ones hosted in Australia come up on pages from Australia and those hosted elsewhere do not.

I could bore you with 100s of our sites hosted on non Australian servers which do pretty well on generic "pages from Australia" searches on google.com.au but one non-client example should suffice to convince you otherwise. Search for the word "demesne" (pardon the pun) on a "pages from Australia" search on google.com.au The top result an Australian owned gTLD domain (above an Australian government site even) is hosted on a box located in San Diego or thereabouts.

You have to ask yousrself why, despite some anecdotal evidence to the contrary, Google would want to start giving heavy weighting to the location of the server. People change delegations all the time and hosting companies especially the larger ones move the location of the boxes all the time. Why would they penalise when they know as well anyone that the domain owner really has no control over the location of a server.

Added to that there is the huge difficulty of actually figuring out where a server is. Sure they can tell who issued the IPs and more or less to whom but after that they would be making educated guesses about the server's actual location.

As for the usage of google.com.au - does any one have any stats on the usage of this by Australians as compared to google.com?

[peterpullar]

Well you cant always be sure of anything. If Telstra do want to increase their speed and lower their charges to compete, I may no longer be listed on Google pages from Australia. And that would probably be the only way I would know if they ever chose to move that infrastructure overseas! (Although it could be reported in Webproworld if it happened).

[minstrel]

I would recommend that you read the threads suggested by cbp above:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=15330
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=15346

I don't believe that Google has any interest in penalizing sites or preventing them from being listed in regional indices where the site is relevant to the regional index. After all, that's what Google bases it's success on - giving people relevant results for their searches. The two best "guarantors" of a regional listing seem to be having a country extension and/or hosting in the country in question. However, whatever the "norm" is for regional listings, I do think one sees enough exceptions to tell us that there is more than one way to get into a regional Google, and beyond the two just mentioned there is some debate about what the others may be. The suggestion that having the country in the Title is an interesting one I hadn't thought of and in the examples I cited in one of the other threads that is certainly true for the site with the Candian .ca extension and hosting in the US - it would be interesting to look at other sites which seem to be "exceptions to the rules" to see how often that crops up, since we know that Google does parse the title tag for other reasons...

Also, ranking well in one index does not of course mean that this will necessarily translate to ranking well in another, since you are competing with a different number of sites and with different criteria.

[David Pearson]

G'Day

Me again, downunder, but hosted somewhere in the US - I think. The Hosting company is US but where the actuall "box" is only they know, and I don't think google would waste time finding out. [if in doubt that I return good .au results simply search for "Mister Balloons" at - http://www.google.com.au/ - and try both general and australian pages options to see the differrence ]

As for the usage of google.com.au - does any one have any stats on the usage of this by Australians as compared to google.com?

OK so no stats here but I have found that many computers here in Australia [I move around a bit sometimes and borrow other computers to check emails and my site for usabillity on differrent machines/platforms/browsers and even monitors] anyway back to the thread, many times I have typed www.google.com into a browser and by default am delivered www.google.com.au

I have also seen many people automaticly select "Search Australian Pages" just to filter out what they see as useless results - this is where the change to a .com.au domain has improved my hits from Australians.

As to why the users consider non Australian sites as useless, that is easy to figure

1 - We have an ocean for products to cross and shipping can be expensive, so if it is already in Australia that is often seen as being prefferable.

2 - We have 10% GST [grand scale theft or 'goods and service tax'] which is applied to the cost of imports by the gov. customs dpt. upon arrival [sometimes goods slip through but not always].

3 - If something goes wrong with the order or the product etc. it is seen by Aussies that an Australian supplier [.com.au] can be telephoned/contacted and given a earfull of abuse, and if serious enough reported to the local authorities or local media.

4 - It has actually been promoted here in Australia that anyone can get a .com domain but only registerd businesses can get a .com.au domain and therefore you are covered by relevant sections of the "Australian" company laws regarding fraud, warranties, etc.

5 - which leads to this one - if the product is faulty and has to be returned for replacement for example, shipping costs for returning the faulty product within Australia will be cheaper.


So if you sell the best widgets in the world and your price is so good that even with shipping and 10% GST you are half the price widgets are here in Australia, you still may be overlooked in favour of the "search pages from Australia" option that is habit for many.

And of course if you are an Australian entertainer [me] promoting to the Australian market you need the .au domain - that has been proven by my increased hits from Aussies, after establishing my .au domain [where-ever it's hosted]

Cheers .... Dave
www.misterballoons.com.au