Confused by Google search engine results. Please advise..

Philbert

Hi folks,

My client is a medium sized well known Irish manufacturer who have being hiring an SEO consulting company for a number of years now. Their customer’s base is almost entirely USA and the purpose was to get their website as high as possible on google.com for specific keywords. Apparently the SEO Company have done very well, and my client is more than happy as their site is ranking number 1 on google.com, or so it appears…

When I enter a specific keyword (this keyword is one word, very generic, and the one that is always used for testing SEO performnce) into Google my clients site ranks number 1. Whether I choose Google.ie or Google.com (“pages from Ireland” or “pages from the web”). The result is usually always the same, number 1 or 2 ranking.

However I think this result is biased towards Ireland because if I go to Google.us (it will automatically switch to google.com), and enter the exact same keywords, the site doesn’t even appear on the first page. It is at the end of the second page ranking 17/18.

Naturally my client is very angry as they have spent so much money on SEO, to specifically target the USA search results.

Can you tell me which search results people in the USA are seeing, the first or the second?

How come when I open Google and select search “the web”, it shows different results as in the above example?

Do you think the SEO Company should have known the result is biased towards Ireland, and should have told my client?

Thanks

Seth Brundle

What has the SEO guy done to improve the ranking of the site?
Where is the site hosted? Is it a .ie or .com?

Philbert

kbannon wrote:

What has the SEO guy done to improve the ranking of the site?

Were not quite sure. But they have full access to the sites codes etc so we presume they have been doing the usual SEO fine tuning etc .. The point is, there was never any reason to question what they were doing as the ranking appeared to be consistently excellent.

kbannon wrote:

Where is the site hosted? Is it a .ie or .com?

The site is on a dedicated server in Esat. It is a well establised .com and has been around for years with tonnes of incoming links and mentions in articles & forums etc.

Seth Brundle

AFAIK google localises results so a site hosted in Ireland will come higher in the Irish results than one in the USA (& vice versa).
The inbound links - are they US or Irish based sites?
Im not an SEO expert but I believe that these are important factors in googles pagerank.

Philbert

kbannon wrote:

The inbound links - are they US or Irish based sites?

They are from all different sorts.

Do you think that searching google.com using an anonymous proxy (located in the states), will display more accurately the results that the Americans see? Or by going to google.us as in my example above.

Im just trying to remove all possibility of there being any Irish location based bias put on the search results.

fintan

Google does regionalise results based on location even if you do not "Pages from Ireland" etc ticked

Eg if you go to Google.com and type in: Access Floors

You will get one set of results

If you open a new window and go to google.ie and do the same you will get another set of results

.co.uk get a different set etc

So im pretty confident the results you see at google.com will be what most americans will see.

Ideally if you knew someone in america and ask them to do a quick search for you that would be great.

Other thing would be the look at the site stats and see what proporation of visitors are coming from the US through organic search results.

Seohelp

Hi Philbert,

If you don't know what it is already you can find out the IP address and hosting location of your website by using this tool

It should tell you all you need to know about where the ESAT server is located. If the server is located within Ireland and you have a .com you will probably see a bias towards a better result within the Google.ie results. This will because you will be given a bit of a boost within these results pages.

Fintan is providing some very good advise when he suggests that you check to see "what proporation of visitors are coming from the US through organic search results". This will give you an idea of the issues surrounding your placement as it removes all other traffic (PPC, inbound links, direct visitors). If you have Clicktracks appetizer it will give you a nice overview of all search engine traffic from the different countries at a glance (and it's free).

For checking search engine results from other countries (assuming you have the Google Toolbar installed)use:

Options -> Features tab -> Search Box Settings -> pick .com from the "Use Google Site" dropdown

Other way would be to go through a US based proxy service and search Google from there
http://www.proxytap.com/
https://www.hidebehind.net/

Hope that helps.

Philbert

Thanks for your help guys.

I suppose the question now is, should the SEO company have known about this search result localisation (resulting in a massive difference in actual rankings)?

Seth Brundle

Philbert wrote:

I suppose the question now is, should the SEO company have known about this search result localisation (resulting in a massive difference in actual rankings)?

Rephrase that:
Should the SEO company have known something that they are paid to know about, given that you as a non SEO got the info easily and for free?
It kind of answers itself!

Seohelp

kbannon wrote:

Rephrase that:
Should the SEO company have known something that they are paid to know about, given that you as a non SEO got the info easily and for free?
It kind of answers itself!

Got to love that for a bit of a dig

Although the SEO probably did, and definitely should know of the "search result localisation (resulting in a massive difference in actual rankings)" it is also your responsiblity to inform them of your objectives.

If you made it clear from the start that the US was your main target market and that the priority was on performing well in this market at the expense of Google.ie then it is absurd that they wouldn't have asked you about your hosting plan, server location, and any other factors that they would've felt vital to ensuring that Google.com was the one that the site would've had success within.

However, if you just wanted your site optimized for best results then it looks like they have given you this. It just happens that the best results are focued on an Irish Market.

IMHO, it all comes down to the fine print.

vito

Philbert wrote:

Hi folks,

My client is a medium sized well known Irish manufacturer who have being hiring an SEO consulting company for a number of years now. Their customer’s base is almost entirely USA and the purpose was to get their website as high as possible on google.com for specific keywords. Apparently the SEO Company have done very well, and my client is more than happy as their site is ranking number 1 on google.com, or so it appears…

When I enter a specific keyword (this keyword is one word, very generic, and the one that is always used for testing SEO performnce) into Google my clients site ranks number 1. Whether I choose Google.ie or Google.com (“pages from Ireland” or “pages from the web”). The result is usually always the same, number 1 or 2 ranking.

However I think this result is biased towards Ireland because if I go to Google.us (it will automatically switch to google.com), and enter the exact same keywords, the site doesn’t even appear on the first page. It is at the end of the second page ranking 17/18.

Naturally my client is very angry as they have spent so much money on SEO, to specifically target the USA search results.

Can you tell me which search results people in the USA are seeing, the first or the second?

How come when I open Google and select search “the web”, it shows different results as in the above example?

Do you think the SEO Company should have known the result is biased towards Ireland, and should have told my client?

Thanks

Out of curiosity was the SEO company claiming to have gotten you a #1 on google.com US results?

One word generic phrases are going to be the hardest to optimise for, so it may well be that the #17/18 position was quite an achievement.

Also bear in mind that AFAIK the results served on Google.com to someone on an Irish IP will differ from the results served to someone in the US.

This is because the .com property is used widely around the globe and Google geo-target the SERPs. Google.us will probably redirect you to google.com which will geo-target the results.

Try checking from the proxy as mentioned above. This is the only way to be sure of your ranking in the US.

Then start looking at the fine print in your contract. But to be honest any SEO that guarantees you a specific position in the SERPs is a conman to be sure. Most especially so for highly competitive keywords.

The best SEOs will never guarantee anything - targets yes, guarantees never. In fact they will always have a disclaimer in their contract to this effect.

Only Google can guarantee any particular result

Philbert

vito wrote:

Out of curiosity was the SEO company claiming to have gotten you a #1 on google.com US results?

Indirectly yes. They would produce reports which were broken down between Google.ie and Google.com performance. Implying the .ie was Ireland and the .com was global. There were usually always identical results.

vito wrote:

One word generic phrases are going to be the hardest to optimise for, so it may well be that the #17/18 position was quite an achievement.

Personally, I agree with that. Its a major search term and the companies listing above it are huge in comparison with probably much larger SEO budgets. However, to a Marketing Director with little or no clue of what SEO is all about, its quite a surprise.

vito wrote:

Also bear in mind that AFAIK the results served on Google.com to someone on an Irish IP will differ from the results served to someone in the US.

Thats exactly what we discovered has being happening. And why I started this thread. The SEO Company know the target market and implied that the Google.com we see is what the target market sees. Which we have discovered today, is not the case at all. :eek:

vito wrote:

This is because the .com property is used widely around the globe and Google geo-target the SERPs. Google.us will probably redirect you to google.com which will geo-target the results.

It does exactly that, and produces the exact same results as if I used a proxy server.

vito wrote:

Then start looking at the fine print in your contract. But to be honest any SEO that guarantees you a specific position in the SERPs is a conman to be sure. Most especially so for highly competitive keywords.

The best SEOs will never guarantee anything - targets yes, guarantees never. In fact they will always have a disclaimer in their contract to this effect.

Only Google can guarantee any particular result

Great info. Thanks for the post Vito.

Ziycon

Philbert wrote:

Were not quite sure. But they have full access to the sites codes etc so we presume they have been doing the usual SEO fine tuning etc .. The point is, there was never any reason to question what they were doing as the ranking appeared to be consistently excellent.

The site is on a dedicated server in Esat. It is a well establised .com and has been around for years with tonnes of incoming links and mentions in articles & forums etc.

Hes right, the reason it shows so low in the US search is because its hosted on an Irish server! All search engines are like this, you cant win, if you hosted in the US and got number one rank you'd lose your rank on the IE google as its hosted on a US server!

Bob the Builder

afaik, google also whois's all the domains to see where is it hosted.

two websites which i'm helping with are hosted in the US, when actually one is in Ireland and the other in the UK. They rank better in America. the Google CEO(what's his name?) also mentioned in a briefing that "Google's SE does a WhoIs on every domain it finds..."

Do a search on Google Video to find the exact words(it was a goog.video i found it in)

mneylon

nevf wrote:

afaik, google also whois's all the domains to see where is it hosted.

Whois won't tell you where the domain is hosted. You'd have to do a geoip lookup on the actual IP(s) of the site to get that info...

vito

blacknight wrote:

Whois won't tell you where the domain is hosted. You'd have to do a geoip lookup on the actual IP(s) of the site to get that info...

And we all know that Google does this also

vito

Philbert wrote:

It does exactly that, and produces the exact same results as if I used a proxy server.

Actually I did not expect that result.

I would think that browsing to google.us will re-direct you to google.com, which will see you are on an Irish IP and serve SERPs that are filtered for Irish customers.

So when you went to google.us and were redirected to google.com you got different results than when you browsed directly to google.com? No proxy and all browsing from Irish IP?

Are you sure about this? Very interesting if so because the redirect would therefore be de-activating the geo-targeting of SERPs.

Philbert wrote:

However, to a Marketing Director with little or no clue of what SEO is all about, its quite a surprise.

A little off-topic, but personally I think that any Mktg Dir who is going to appropriate budget for SEO has a duty to his company to least have a basic knowledge of what it is that he is expending shareholder funds on.

Perhaps you could offer him a crash course of some description - I'm sure there must be some SEO 101 courese for marketing executives?

If not it might become my next mini-project

BTW it sounds somewhat like you're the piggy in the middle?

Sorry I just thought of one last thing - do you know what exactly they were doing to achieve the high rankings? If not I would consider having someone independently look into it as any SEO company that *MIGHT* be happy to provide their clients with false reports *COULD* potentially be using black-hat, and to be honest you don't want that. Please bear in mind that this is unlikely but worth a mention. Just a final thought that struck me.

Philbert

vito wrote:

Actually I did not expect that result.

I would think that browsing to google.us will re-direct you to google.com, which will see you are on an Irish IP and serve SERPs that are filtered for Irish customers.

So when you went to google.us and were redirected to google.com you got different results than when you browsed directly to google.com? No proxy and all browsing from Irish IP?

Are you sure about this? Very interesting if so because the redirect would therefore be de-activating the geo-targeting of SERPs.

Hi Vito. Yes, that is absolutely unequivocally what is happening.
I go to Google.com directly and I get a number 1 ranking. I go to Google.us which redirects to Google.com/webhp (not sure what the "/webhp" is about) and it shows completely different results. The same results I get when I use the proxy server.

vito wrote:

Sorry I just thought of one last thing - do you know what exactly they were doing to achieve the high rankings? If not I would consider having someone independently look into it as any SEO company that *MIGHT* be happy to provide their clients with false reports *COULD* potentially be using black-hat, and to be honest you don't want that. Please bear in mind that this is unlikely but worth a mention. Just a final thought that struck me.

To be quite honest I dont know what they have being doing to achieve these rankings. However, we have since decided to hire a new independant SEO consultant. Apparently anyone in the SEO business knows him, he has his own site and very popular blog. So hopefully we will have better luck with this guy. Cant really mention names for obvious reasons.

Appreciate all the comments and advice.

vito

Philbert wrote:

Hi Vito. Yes, that is absolutely unequivocally what is happening.
I go to Google.com directly and I get a number 1 ranking. I go to Google.us which redirects to Google.com/webhp (not sure what the "/webhp" is about) and it shows completely different results. The same results I get when I use the proxy server.

Apoliges, my bad - this is the correct behaviour except when logged into a google account which then does the geo-targeted redirect.

Philbert wrote:

To be quite honest I dont know what they have being doing to achieve these rankings. However, we have since decided to hire a new independant SEO consultant. Apparently anyone in the SEO business knows him, he has his own site and very popular blog. So hopefully we will have better luck with this guy. Cant really mention names for obvious reasons.

Appreciate all the comments and advice.

Probably a good move. You should try to find out what tactics any SEO will use and then carefully measure the results regularly. Best of luck with it!

Bananna man

Can someone tell me how to search on google.com? Whenever i put in that url it automatically redirects me to google.ie

Thanks

Seohelp

Can someone tell me how to search on google.com? Whenever i put in that url it automatically redirects me to google.ie

Thanks

Go through a US based proxy service and search Google (.com) from there
These two sites will do what you want done.
http://www.proxytap.com/
https://www.hidebehind.net/

fintan

alternatively get a google account and use the personalised home page function