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Geek Culture / TGC Forum + SEO Issue?

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 12:14 Edited at: 23rd Jan 2007 12:17
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I think there is a negative impact on this forum due to it being a ".com" domain hosting in the US... Check the difference in these results (difference between "pages in the UK" and "the web" options at google.co.uk):

[edit] changed due to forum link bug...

[/edit]

A lot of people are currently experiencing very poor traffic if they have a .com hosted in the UK due to a supposed bug with Google's algorithm, however this site is US hosted isn't it?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 12:41
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But the 2nd option would *never* work, and shouldn't ever work, because the server isn't and never has been located in the UK. It's nothing to do with the domain name, Google rank it on actual geographic location - this is why lots of 1&1 customers, who's sites are physically in Germany, have/had real issues with Google UK rankings.

On a side note (unrelated to TGC): to be honest SEO is (and imho always has been) a waste of time next to actually building a decent well linked site in the first place. If your site has great content, people will visit and link to it, and when that happens, you jump up the ratings. All of my personal sites are indexes at the top of all the major search engines, and I can assure you I did nothing but put good content into them.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 12:55
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I completely agree about that - but that is technically known as "White Hat SEO".

What you're taking about in terms of decent content and valuable incoming links IS a form of SEO - its just a moral form

I also understand what you're saying, however is this not a case for having the server located in the UK?

Without probing into the private business of TGC too much - does TGC have a larger subscriber/customer base in the UK or US?

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spooky
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 13:06
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I find that point about .com websites being hosted in the UK very interesting and can see why Google and other search engines may be biased in prefering US based .com addresses. I'm going to do a bit more research on the situation as we have hundreds of websites hosted at various UK datacentres which are a mix of .com and .co.uk domains.

I have found that getting .com domains high up in Google rankings seems to be an uphill struggle and maybe moving these websites to a US based datacentre may improve things, but that is a lot of hassle and cost we can do without, however some of our clients may be very happy with us if it does indeed make a difference.

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 13:26
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Quote: "does TGC have a larger subscriber/customer base in the UK or US?"


US, by a significant margin. Hence the predominance of dollar values on our site, the location of the servers, etc.

Although to be honest the server location is also primarily linked to the cost factor involved in hosting in the US vs. the UK when it comes down to things like bandwidth charges - bandwidth is still stupidly expensive here compared to the US, and as most of our traffic hits the Atlantic anyway, it's pointless paying for that premium. In an ideal world we'd have a UK and US server to split up the load a little... I can but dream

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 13:36
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Quote: "US, by a significant margin."

In which case, I can entirely see why you've chosen US over UK.

Its still an interesting, if not annoying, issue with google that the local searches are so... well... local!

As you say, US hosting charges as SO much cheaper than UK - take Dreamhost for example!

An interesting read on this topic is on Matt Cutts blog:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/infrastructure-status-january-2007/

Specifically...
Quote: "An SEO or two has been holding my feet to the fire about root pages of .com’s that are hosted outside the US. Barry has talked about the issue a little bit here. In some (pretty rare) circumstances, you’ll see the root page when you search site:domain.com on google.co.uk for the “search the web” option but you won’t see the root page when you switch to “search pages from the UK”. I thought we’d nailed this issue in December, but we found another way that this can happen. I believe a fix has been submitted and is percolating its way through the system. Of the ~7 examples that I know of, I believe all but one is working now (and the remaining site is doing a chain of like five 302 redirects to weird/long/deep urls). However, if you 1) have a .com that is hosted outside the US, 2) searching on (say) google.co.uk for [site:yourdomain.com] returns your root page and all your pages for “Search the web”, 3) if you switch to (say) “pages from the UK”, the root page does not appear but the rest of your pages do, then this paragraph applies to you. I’d wait 4-5 days to let this second change percolate completely into our index, and if you still see the behavior after 4-5 days, please leave a comment with the name of your site."


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BatVink
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 13:57
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Quote: "...and can see why Google and other search engines may be biased in prefering US based .com addresses."


But .com is not a US TLD!!!!!! It's a global one (gTLD), and stands for "Commercial".

.us is the American Country code TLD (ccTLD), but have you ever seen more than a handful?

The same goes for .gov and .org, they are global, not US-based.



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Richard Davey
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 14:19
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Quote: "As you say, US hosting charges as SO much cheaper than UK - take Dreamhost for example!"


On a side note, I just closed my account with Dreamhost. One of the most amateur hosts I've ever had a site on! I wouldn't trust a fully commercial site on there if someone paid me. Although for a personal site, or just a playground, it was fine.

I would be surprised (but not totally) if Google treated .coms as "American", but I honestly thought their system was a geographical detection, not a domain based one. I.e. they frown on '.co.uk's not hosted in the UK for example. .com has never meant 'American', but I can see why they assume that people who want to host a UK *local* site, would use a *.uk domain name. After all, .com isn't supposed to be used for that. But people don't care for standards any more (not for a LONG time!) and just pick what sounds nice, or is available.

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 15:35
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vink,

yes com/gov/org are all global, but Google is a US company so they are probably percolating results upwards not just based on the com/gov/org bit, but also based on the first result-set's location in the world, ie US comapnies getting preferential treatment. I would consider that practice exceptionally mild on google's part, considering all of the sinister crap the are up to currently.


Its 9/11 - but its FAKE 9/11 Ts=SQRT(Df/16)
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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 15:47
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Cattle - you are right that US companies (ie, US Server's and .com's) DO get preferential treatment - but only on google.com. Google.co.uk returns different results - often VERY different - to .com.

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 17:00
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roger that


Its 9/11 - but its FAKE 9/11 Ts=SQRT(Df/16)
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BatVink
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 17:10 Edited at: 23rd Jan 2007 17:10
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I'm quite sure it does happen that way. I was just correcting the general misconception that .com is an American TLD. There have been many legal cases where American companies have thought they had a greater entitlement to a .com domain name than the owner situated in another part of the world.

It doesn't help when you have a president who doesn't know there's a world outside the US, and we have a prime minister who thinks we are the 51st state



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spooky
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 17:34
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I too hope that Google does not give US hosted .com sites better rankings than UK based .com sites, when using Google.com, but I have a few work websites that certainly appear to work that way.

If I use Google.co.uk and search using same keywords, either using 'search the web' or 'search pages from the uk', then my sites are very high up the rankings.

Other search engines, even msn.com don't seem to care much about where site is hosted, as it shouldn't do. It's only Google.com that seem to do something that a lot of people don't like.

I'm gonna talk to my boss about moving one or two webs to a US based host, just to see what difference it makes.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 19:17
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spooky - did you read this?

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spooky
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2007 23:09
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Yes, I've read other similar posts around the net, but we have never had that problem as far as I know. Our .com webs have always appeared in most search engines although some are way way down the rankings but that is because we sucked at SEO upto a couple of years ago. We are a lot better now.

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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 07:21
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Are you guys sure that .gov is global? I've only ever seen US government stuff using .gov. For example every Canadian government site uses .gov.ca, .gov.bc.ca, etc. I have never seen a non-US site using a .gov TLD.

Quote: "I would consider that practice exceptionally mild on google's part, considering all of the sinister crap the are up to currently."


Sinister crap? If it's political, then please don't get into it here. But if not, can you enlighten me with what you're referring to?

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BatVink
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 09:59
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.gov is used predominantly by the US government, but that's not because it's a US TLD. It just seems to have panned out that way.

Could make an interesting move for someone like Iraq or Korea. They could legitimately use .gov, and because of the misconceptions that it is US only, wreak havoc!



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Jess T
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 11:54 Edited at: 24th Jan 2007 12:00
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Quote: "Generic TLDs

In the 1980s, seven gTLDs (.com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and .org) were created. Domain names may be registered in three of these (.com, .net, and .org) without restriction; the other four have limited purposes."


From http://www.icann.org/tlds

[EDIT]
Haha:
Quote: ".gov - 1995 - Sponsored - United States government"

from http://www.icann.org/registries/listing.html

and:
Quote: "The .gov domain is reserved exclusively for the United States Government."

from http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm
[/EDIT]

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Kentaree
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 12:04
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That's cos the US goverment is in charge of ICANN, maybe not officially but behind the scenes.

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Jess T
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 12:16
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lol, no it's cos they're a 'Sponsor'...

Quote: "A Sponsor is an organization to which is delegated some defined ongoing policy-formulation authority regarding the manner in which a particular sponsored TLD is operated. The sponsored TLD has a Charter, which defines the purpose for which the sponsored TLD has been created and will be operated. The Sponsor is responsible for developing policies on the delegated topics so that the TLD is operated for the benefit of a defined group of stakeholders, known as the Sponsored TLD Community, that are most directly interested in the operation of the TLD. The Sponsor also is responsible for selecting the registry operator and to varying degrees for establishing the roles played by registrars and their relationship with the registry operator. The Sponsor must exercise its delegated authority according to fairness standards and in a manner that is representative of the Sponsored TLD Community."


From http://www.icann.org/tlds

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 12:23
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Quote: "The .gov domain is reserved exclusively for the United States Government."

Because nowhere else have a government.. Lol

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BatVink
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 14:31
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So it shouldn't be classed as a gTLD then! You can't have your cake and eat it.



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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Jan 2007 22:06
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Ahh, I knew it

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