Hi guys

So I had a massive drop in traffic on my site http://www.worldofchat.co.uk, and I couldnt figure out why as my positions on google had no changed when I was checking them.

Anyhow I decided to use a US based proxy to check my google.com placements, and was shocked to find my site was hardly anywhere.

My site shows at number 2 for me when I check google.com, but from the proxy I show at page 16.

I know it often showed different positions for people in different countries, but why such a big difference? its little wonder my site traffic is down.

Woc

Welcome to the world of Search and search engines.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...tml#post710287

5 Reasons Why Rankings Are A Poor Measure Of Success
http://searchengineland.com/080131-071244.php

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...ed-search.html

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/intern...h-traffic.html

Intersting stuff, I was aware of most of that however and I dont over check my keywords really, was just wondering why my traffic tailed off.

Seems my site is the highest ranked .co.uk domain for my keywords, but i suppose people who use google.com dont want to see .co.uk domains in the listings. So maybe this is why im seeing such a wild difference. Along with geo location stuff.

CAnt say as ive noticed this before, so it could have happened many months ago.

Woc

When did it actually drop off?

Maybe 9 months ago, i had problems with my site being hacked, so it had dropped a long way in google anyhow, so i had been working hard to get it fixed and also to try to get my rankings back, as they had plummted when my site was hacked, my google.co.uk rankings are back to normal, and when i check on google.com those are back too.

To me it seemed like my keywords were slowly creeping back, but I noticed my hits were not going up by much, even though my keywords seemingly looked in a good postions to me.

Only just realised in the last few days, my keywords have not recovered at all, when i checked via a USA proxy my keywords were no where, for example when i check free chat rooms, shows as number 2 to me, but page 15 on the proxy.

I knew there owuld be a difference when i checked it, but didnt realise there would be such a wide difference.

Woc

This can be due to results generated from different data centers.

Yes but this amount of variation in result is not acceptable..

^Why isn't it acceptable? If I was looking for a free chat room I would be quite disappointed with google if they filled my first page of results with free Punjabi chat rooms, or free Arabic chat rooms, yet if someone in the middle east was looking for a free chat room he also would be disappointed if the op's site came up.

I think its mostly down to my domain being a .co.uk domain, which i understand why these wouldnt show v well on google.com, but I always ranked well on google.com so while i understand why this happens its a bit of a gut wrench to me

Woc

I think it was late 2008 that google announced it would try to localise results for people, by the end of 2009 they started getting better at it, now they are pretty good at it, so they gave enough warning time to everyone

SERP varies from different datacenter. It is just normal.

Well its actually pretty weird, because if I check google.com from where I am my serps are fine, but If i check the serps with a USA proxy my site is more or less no where, so its pretty odd really, Im guessing this is down to my ip address being uk based so when I search google.com its returning the best results for my ip address, which would include my .co.uk domain.

However when i search using a USA proxy, there are no .co.uk domains at all in teh top 150 sites, which i suppose makes sense, as people in the USA dont wanna see .co.uk domains in their results, so its v clever really.

I always knew there were changes when u searched from different locations, but not quite to this extent, which 0 .co.uk address appearing at all, within the top 100 or so.

This more or less makes me think should I just get a .com address, to be able to compete

Woc

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Welcome to the world of Search and search engines.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...tml#post710287

5 Reasons Why Rankings Are A Poor Measure Of Success
http://searchengineland.com/080131-071244.php

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...ed-search.html

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/intern...h-traffic.html

Very nice links. I've learned some new things with those links. Thanks for sharing.

@usearchme
Do you use the same extension with Google. Different data base of Google gives different search results. Like Google.com will give you different results compare to Google.co.uk

It's normal.SERP varies from different data center.

ROFLMAO. The OP's problem has absolutely NOTHING to do with data centers.

The OP's problem likely has, as he suspected, everything to do with the fact that his domain is a country coded top level domain (ccTLD). Domains with a .co.uk extensions are assumed by Google to be targeting UK traffic.

This is the reason they rank well in Google.co.uk. It's also the reason they rank in Google.com for UK based searchers only. It would be stupid for Google to be showing sites/URLs targeting UK visitors to searchers on Google.com NOT from the UK.

If I'm searching for a mortgage company and live in the US then showing a UK mortgage company in my Google.com results is illogical. It's an irrelevant result. However, it WOULD make sense for Google to show a UK mortgage company to a UK searcher who searches Google.com for a mortgage company.

If the OP is targeting visitors other than those from the UK, I'd consider getting a domain with a non-ccTLD (preferably a .com). I would host the site in the US. I would make the new site target Google.com specifically, and have no interest in ranking in the various country specific views of Google (i.e. Google.co.uk, Google.ca, etc.)

this kind of thing is quite common.

I think you old backlinks are removed in Google and hence your ranking got affected. Now Concentrate on making backlinks again and I am sure it will boost your ranking.

Although, it won't have a major impact on your SERP'S (if it helps), you can set your Geo Target via Google Webmaster Tools.

Ref: Geotargeting - Google Webmaster Tools

This would be helpful if, a specific country or location is a major traffic source for your website.

Google preferred to give ranking geo graphically. If your site is on uk domain then its better to do seo on that domain.

before checking your rankings manually make sure you isnt log-on to your gmail and cache and everything is already cleared...and yes, different data centers gives different results

its very common .. co.uk is specfic to a particular region .. so its always better to go for .com domain in case of google