pages from the UK

[multilingual]

How does Google define 'pages from UK'

It can't be the .co.uk extension because there are plenty of .coms in a UK search.

Is it based on where the site is hosted?

JB

[Stephen]

I belive you are right that is does not reference the TLD (e.g. .uk, .fr etc), rather it uses the geo-location of the IP address of the host. This is why using a UK based host is important if you want 'UK only' results to show.

[Rob Holmes]

I gather it's done on IP address.

Interestingly I tried to access google.co.uk in France last month and it kept redirecting me to google.fr so it also bases what it presents on IP address too.

Rob

[Stephen]

Was that on your own laptop Rob, as I think that may have been due to a cookie on your machine? It should be possible to use Google's various world sites to access localised results in say France whilst in the UK.

Visiting www.google.com/ncr should avoid any cookie based redirect.

[multilingual]

I use Google.ca quite a lot, and I can access it and run a search without a problem.

JB

[TWD-Tony]

It's actually done by the TLD :wink:

Only when a generic TLD is used (.com, .net etc) then the server's IP address comes into the equation.

[Stephen]

Our crawlers may identify the country for a site by factors such as the physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address, the WHOIS information for a domain, and its top-level domain.

[Rob Holmes]

Was that on your own laptop Rob, as I think that may have been due to a cookie on your machine? It should be possible to use Google's various world sites to access localised results in say France whilst in the UK.

Visiting www.google.com/ncr should avoid any cookie based redirect.

Yes it was :)

Rob