Comments on: Google.ie showing UK Results?

By: Leo

Leo — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:35:27 +0000

I’ve been noticing major updates in the serps this past week. This past change only seemed to happen in the past 2 days. I’ve been monitoring under the keywords: mortgages, remortgages, etc. I only noticed a flood of uk sites yesterday. I’m sure it’ll be corrected in the next few days

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:00:42 +0000

Richard – Thanks for clearing that up.

Have selected the geo targetting tool a couple of months back to target UK. Desn’t appaers to have had any effect yet.

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:43:56 +0000

Hi Paul – defo lots of volatility in the SERPs recently. Sometimes bordering crazy IMO.

Hi Kevin – this is actually UK results appearing on Google.ie web searches. SO not much help to Irish sites on any count LOL

Rgds to both
Richard

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:36:05 +0000

Hello Richard, is it just Google UK or other Google sites?

This does appear to help Irish websites hoping to sell into the UK…

By: paul

paul — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:46:52 +0000

I’ve been seeing really large swings in the last few days, maybe they are playing around and tweaking their regional algorithms again. I know they do it quite a lot. These things keep me on my toes !

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:30:05 +0000

Hi Paul

In general Google applies a bias to local sites in local search properties, even when searching the web. If they didn’t we’d likely see a lot of US sites for this query. But for some reason we’re getting UK results when we shouldn’t. I wouldn’t underestimate window washers jump onto the web mind – if you check the results many of the ranking pages are homepages not inner-pages, so it’s less likely that on-page factors are driving this. You’d generally see far more inner pages if it was otherwise.

Thanks for the observations,
Rgds
Richard

PS – I actually wouldn’t want PFI pre-selected for searches on google.ie.

By: Paul Anthony

Paul Anthony — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:53:21 +0000

Should Google.ie default to returning pages from Ireland? Without pressing the radiobutton – I think so.

Richard – I think that there are alot of industries out there who haven’t yet jumped on the web bandwagon. Window washing probably being one of them – I’d hasten a guess that the UK sites would be easy to topple – with onpage ranking factors being the main reason they are at the top of the chain. I may be wrong, but backlinks / social bookmarking / linkbait – isn’t that high on the average window washers agenda.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:45:47 +0000

I did notice the position although I would prefer if your site replaced mine considering I’m not active in the field.

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:18:41 +0000

Only thing is if you select ‘PFI’ you get a decent enough result set.

I see you were #1 for ’seo ireland’ the other day Gavin – did you notice that?

Rgds
Richard

By: Gavin

Gavin — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:02:56 +0000

Lawn experts is another. I’m wondering is it due to the lack of Irish sites for that keyword?

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:38:05 +0000

Hi Alan

Recent research shows that less than 20% of users utilise that function in the UK. I would expect that to be pretty indicative of Irish behaviour also.

The point I’m making is that if I go to Google.co.uk and repeat this search they dont show me a bunch of Irish websites.

Thanks for dropping by, rgds
Richard

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:21:47 +0000

Try using the ‘pages from Ireland’ radio button