Getting Into Google.co.uk

[bonusgeek]

Hello Mr. Pants lol, can I pick your brain about getting your website listed into google.co.uk. Really I don't even know how much value there is in this, meaning when someone goes to google.co.uk by default the search web is checked instead of pages from the UK so I don't know if I am missing any traffic or not here.

But the reason I ask is I see many sites listed in the google.co.uk yet many sites are not, and I was curious if I should even be worried about it and if so then whats the trick to getting your site listed in the .co.uk version of google. Is it just a matter of getting some .co.uk links pointing to your website along with maybe some uk related content or is there more to it? Thanks in advance.

[SEOPants]

I'm not sure about the weighting of each of these items when trying to get listed in country specific search engines, but here's a list:

1. Top Level Domain (TLD) - to represent the geographic relevance of a page.

2. Location of web server - a .com hosted in the UK, would mean the .com is meant for the UK.

3. Inbound links - Inbound links from sites who are also located from that region.

4. Google local listing - Google listing the physical address of the website and then being plotted on Google maps. (you'll notice a lot more sites are doing thing)

5. Language - if you are trying to get listed in german, french, spanish search engines, ensure the content is that language.

6. Terms - use terminology specific to the country you are wanting to target.
- for instance.. we all know what slot machines are but in the UK a variance of slot machines is "fruit machines", in australia slot machines are called "pokies" or "poker machines"


If anyone else has a broader list.. I'd love to see it.

I wasn't sure if the registrant details mattered.

[LionSlots]

I did a bit of SEOing a while back, and I found that using terminology, down to even stuff like slang, cities, towns, states in articles.. helped pick up region specific traffic.

[slickrick]

Originally Posted by LionSlots

I did a bit of SEOing a while back, and I found that using terminology, down to even stuff like slang, cities, towns, states in articles.. helped pick up region specific traffic.

I get traffic from countries I didn't intend on targeting for using obscure terms in some of the articles I use on my blog.

Although looking at my logs, I really do get people typing in some bizarre things!

[bonustreak]

I know what are people thinking? Bizzare is just what I would call it too

[SEOPants]

Originally Posted by slickrick

I get traffic from countries I didn't intend on targeting for using obscure terms in some of the articles I use on my blog.

Although looking at my logs, I really do get people typing in some bizarre things!

It is easier to target a bunch of less targeted terms, then the heavily targeted terms. You'll get traffic quicker, and its easier too!

[WagerX]

Originally Posted by SEOPants

I wasn't sure if the registrant details mattered.

i don't know if they matter for geo targeting, but I do think they matter for a webmaster who has multiple websites.

That's a question that I have been trying to get an answer for. I've seen an interview with Matt Cutts (Google Guy) and he avoided that questions by saying that it's possible for a webmaster to have multiple websites, but it is unreasonable for one webmaster to have 1000's of different sites and have them all relevant.

He was vague, and avoided details like how many websites are reasonable etc.

So, this suggests that Google does take into consideration the registration data, but to what degree and to what purpose it is still unkown (at least to me).

I also worry about having multiple domains on google webmaster tools. Will they devalue links from websites within the same webmaster tools listing? I do not know, but they could in the future.

Any thoughts SEOPants?

[SEOPants]

Originally Posted by WagerX

i don't know if they matter for geo targeting, but I do think they matter for a webmaster who has multiple websites.

That's a question that I have been trying to get an answer for. I've seen an interview with Matt Cutts (Google Guy) and he avoided that questions by saying that it's possible for a webmaster to have multiple websites, but it is unreasonable for one webmaster to have 1000's of different sites and have them all relevant.

He was vague, and avoided details like how many websites are reasonable etc.

So, this suggests that Google does take into consideration the registration data, but to what degree and to what purpose it is still unkown (at least to me).

I also worry about having multiple domains on google webmaster tools. Will they devalue links from websites within the same webmaster tools listing? I do not know, but they could in the future.

Any thoughts SEOPants?

Great post WagerX. Bringing up a couple of points which probably need further discussion.

In regards to the registrant details mattering or not, to save everyone having to read back, bonusgeek in this case was talking about if you were trying to get a website into google.co.uk - should your registrant details be registered to a UK person or company.

After a bit more research, it does matter.
The registrant details should be UK registered and hosted in the UK.

By hosted in the UK - I mean the Location of the IP.
IP Location: UK(UNITED KINGDOM)

It well help you in the google.co.uk and msn live search serps.



Regarding multiple website having the same registrant details and having a negative effect on your SERP listings.

You actually jogged my memory to an incident which happened to a webmaster friend of mine 2 years ago.

He had a network of roughly 80 websites. Deep and rich with content. sitting on different IP Addresses and across 2 servers I think - may have been 1.

His websites started ranking and pushing up through the SERPs quite well. The network was pure white hat, nothing suspect. Fantastic. Great. Sexy.

On another set of IP's he had 5-15 sites (he was very low key about it) a bunch of black hat / grey sites - doing extremely well.

There was no link between the 2 networks. No cross links, different ips, different servers. The sites didnt even look the same.

2 Networks, totally seperate, different sites, different ips.. the whole dealo - except - there was one link - both networks had the same registrant details, down to the same DNS servers. *ahhh*


When the black hat sites were found and dropped from the SERPs... all the white hats were dropped as well. The only link the webmaster could find was the same Name Servers, and registrant details. I believe this was confirmed by someone high up somewhere - cant remember where.

Google does look at registrant details. If they are banning sites with the same registrant and Name Servers - I think its safe to say that when it comes to detecting cookie cutter websites being built to farm traffic - this is possibly the best way.

So - what if all your sites were on one IP, with different registrant details - I "think" and I stress I "think" - this is fine.

As many webmasters have their websites on shared hosting companies, where 1-50+ websites are on the same IP. Each of the webmasters sites have different registrant details, but yet still list well in the serps.



Does google look at your regsitrant and Name Server details - yes.

Does it hurt you to have multiple sites with the same registrant details - yes I think so - 10+ IMO would be pushing it. Saying that I have 15 sites for a client, who gets about 10K unique visitors a month. And they all have the same registrant details, on different IPs. With this clients network, we've taken the philiosphy - more sites, the better, lets us theme and target different keywords based on his url and website, allowing us to target the less searched keywords. For it to be a postive exercise, each website was make $1287 USD a year to cover costs - content writers, hosting, domain registration. Not bad if you are starting to pull in 10K a year in visitors.

Would private registration help - This I don't know yet.