Google Webmaster Tools smoke n mirrors
It’s not often I get so pissed off that I throw something, but I’m getting close…
I’m helping a very very small company with SEO, and we I ranked them top 10 for most of the keyword set But in the .com, they are an English company on a UK IP, but the Domain is a .com at a recent Search Conference one of the owners asked a Google Rep, about this issue and they said that’s easy sign up or get your SEO to sign up to Webmaster tools in Google and you can tell Google that your a UK based company..
so we did that flicked the flag to UK and it didn’t make a blind bit of difference, know I have the issue that the client beliefs that Google wouldn’t lie to him so it most be something I have done…
what do you do … me I just show the clients what happened when a Google Adwords Rep said they could do a better job than me, Google had the account for 5 months before the client came back due to falling conversions and rising costs.
What do you do when Google’s advice is just doesn’t help ?
DaveN
Chis 1867 days ago
Totally agree Dave, it’s frustrating to say the least.
The whole Webmaster Tools thing seem to be a one way street. “You spend time giving us more information about your site/ portfolio of sites and we may or may not choose to use this data”.
With regards to your question thought, when you’ve done everything by the book and still no progress then surely it’s time to give up – yea right!
Andy Blackburn 1867 days ago
Couldn’t agree more. Whilst some things get changed or noted quite quickly, i’ve waited MONTHS to have pages removed from the index after a bit of a mishap with WordPress’ categories and archives…
Why give us the tools to make your results better if you’re not going to pay attention?!!?
RogerW 1867 days ago
You probably just have to wait.
I switched a subdomain of one of my sites to Spain, and it took 3 months before G showed it in the “Sites from Spain” option of google.es
It does work finally, though.
DaveN 1867 days ago
not after “pages in UK” ,,, just a odd rank in the top 30 in google.co.uk … top 10 in google.con fuck know where in the google.co.uk..
lesson here is YOU NEED a CO.UK to rank for sure in the Google.co.uk
Dave
RogerW 1867 days ago
But a sure sign that G thinks your site is from the UK is if you show up using that option, right? It’s just a test.
If you don’t show up with that option, you know that G doesn’t consider the site to be from the UK, and you won’t get that extra push g.co.uk seems to give to UK sites in the normal results.
JohnMu 1867 days ago
Hi Dave, in general it can take quite some time for the effect of this setting to be visible. How long ago did you set it? I’ve moved my personal site all around Europe with this setting (it’s currently enjoying the sun in Italy
) and it has generally worked as expected.
AlchemyV 1867 days ago
http://alchemyv.com/blog/?cat=29Yes I know exactly what you mean. I have a .com site which struggles in the top 10 for a very competitive keyword. Flicked the switch to say it was uk and made sweet FA difference. And my experience with the adwords team is mixed. On the one hand some salesman from Google offered to help optimise accounts on the basis of transferring these to a new one and the transition process was less than impressive shall we say? Anyway, I then i get an email months later from google noticing that the spend is pretty good on our existing client and that they would like to offer their services. On the latter I have been impressed with some of the work they carried out, but I still reserve comment at this stage.
AlchemyV 1867 days ago
http://alchemyv.com/blog/?cat=29And yes TLDs are very essential!
Dave Davis 1867 days ago
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/Dave, this has been a problem with the UK for quite some time. The webmaster tools location association tool is almost useless. This really seems to effect the UK most too which is strange.
After 4 months waiting, we had to buy out the .co.uk (already registered) domains of our clients for them just so they stood a chance in the UK.
Server IP location, Server IP location of inbound links and webmaster tools settings don’t seem to make a difference.
We HAVE had some success after months with a local business listing however. Have you tried that?
Richard Hearne 1866 days ago
Takes 8-14 weeks to kick. I was told by one of their team that it is/was being worked on, so this might have come down by now.
g1smd 1864 days ago
One anomaly, only recently fixed, was that it said for UK sites, something like this:
** Your domain (.GB) is associated with the following geographic region: United Kingdom. **
It was a .org.uk domain, not a .gb domain!
Will Critchlow 1858 days ago
http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/Hi Dave,
Sounds frustrating. Try making sure their (UK) address inc. postcode is in plain text on every page of their site. It worked amazingly well for one client of ours…
W
Online Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » Always Get The Dot Com 1774 days ago
[...] authority domain and in my view you still can’t rely completely on Googles Webmaster Central (and others) to set geotargetting for the sub directory/folder route. Getting all relevant TLD’s for each [...]
Kevin Urban (Affiliate Marketing Help 101) 1770 days ago
http://www.affiliate-marketing101.comMy site is a .com domain as I want to be found by visitors from the United States. The site is run and hosted in Canada and easily found both in google.com and google.ca; I simply added my Canadian address and provided a contact form on the “About Us” page.
Patricia Guernsey - Canada Real Estate 1681 days ago
http://www.teamguernsey.comI completely agree, web master tools have no impact on the geo location attributed to my clients sites. We end up creating two sites, .com and .ca to overcome the problem. Then slowly when the new .ca gains enough google trust, phase the old one out redirecting it to save the links and keep the juice. Waste of time and money just so google show the correct results. Our sites are on Canadian IP addresses, should be easy for them to figure out.
Leonardo Medina - Achando.net 1679 days ago
http://www.achando.netDaveN said YOU NEED a CO.UK to rank for sure in the Google.co.uk.
I agree TLDs are very essential, but I have a .net domain and wanted to be found by visitors from Brazil and other portuguese language visitors. It´s hosted in US and it´s easily found and ranks well in Google Brazil (google.com.br) beeing in the top 10 for many competitive keywords. Only recently i set the geographic target in the webmasters tools. I own this domain since 2005.
Indica Man 1236 days ago
http://itsmedicinejim.blogspot.comI know this is a two year old thread, but the problem with targeted ranking still exists. I did a little testing myself using one of the more popular search terms (THC deaths) in my stats. Using a global search, the page ranked at number four. Using a search based on my geographical target was the a little different….I stopped looking at the 100th result.
Seems to be a waste of effort really.
Jon Reast 1215 days ago
http://www.professionalgloves.euI share all of your frustrations… try getting anywhere with a .eu domain! I’m tearing my hair out here trying to figure any sort of logic to Google’s SE rankings. The problem is with Google effectively monopolising the SE traffic they’re becoming a law unto themselves… Don’t even get me started on their adwords promotions…it’s even worse!
Florida SEo 1214 days ago
Well I get so pissed I contemplate destruction! LOL I am SO sick of Google. All they care about is Adwords. If you dont pay them you can kiss your butt goodbye. You have no hope of being found.
Search Engine Marketing’s Archives: Always Get The Dot Com | AffiliatesLog.com 644 days ago
[...] authority domain and in my view you still can’t rely completely on Googles Webmaster Central (and others) to set geotargetting for the sub directory/folder route. Getting all relevant TLD’s for each [...]