Google Search Console

[Fagin2021]

Here’s something that puzzles me…

I have a website with a top-level-domain of .co.uk. The site is hosted in the UK, all contact information is UK and Google knows it is targeted at the UK.

In Google Search Console, when I track the position in the SERPS of various competitive keywords and filter the results by country, I find that the results are almost identical (or slightly worse) for UK queries compared to queries originating from the USA (or many other parts of the world).

I’d have thought that for someone searching on a keyword (phrase) in the UK, my site would have shown much higher in the SERPS than for someone searching on the same keyword in the USA. It looks like what I would expect if the TLD was .com and not .co.uk.

I can’t figure out why this is.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

By no means an expert in this, but does using google.com or .co.uk affect this?

 

[Fagin2021]

By no means an expert in this, but does using google.com or .co.uk affect this?

I don't know the answer to that one Paul!

As Search Console statistics are based on actual user searches I assume that UK searchers are using .co.uk and USA searchers are using .com

 

[Winx]

without giving away any key info for your business that you do not want to, but can you give us a couple of query examples. As localisation has been in place for several years with Google ranking and results factoring. i.e search for plumbers near me, or UK web hosting and you wont get any results offering $ (maybe a few US hosting companies that have UK data centers - but still in £)

The other thing to understand is what tool you are using to track your keywords. i.e is it same IP when searching on co.uk and com for ranking? Whether you are using .com or co.uk Google, the originating IP of the customer searching will make a difference to the results shown

 

[UKOnlineServices]

Does the business have a Google Business Profile?
Does the website include the businesses physical address in the UK?
Does the website include structured data about the business?
I believe google uses this information for localising search results.

 

[Fagin2021]

without giving away any key info for your business that you do not want to, but can you give us a couple of query examples. As localisation has been in place for several years with Google ranking and results factoring. i.e search for plumbers near me, or UK web hosting and you wont get any results offering $ (maybe a few US hosting companies that have UK data centers - but still in £)

The other thing to understand is what tool you are using to track your keywords. i.e is it same IP when searching on co.uk and com for ranking? Whether you are using .com or co.uk Google, the originating IP of the customer searching will make a difference to the results shown

A couple of examples might be the keyword phrases 'pearl necklaces' or 'pearl earrings'. These are two highly competitive keywords that I don't even bother trying to compete on organically.

If a UK buyer searches on either of these phrases I would expect to rank considerably higher than if a US buyer searched on them. However, according to Search Console, I don't. Google is well aware that the site is a UK site, so why not?

Of course, it may be that I have misunderstood the way Search Console gathers and presents statistics but I don't see how.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Loads of things impact this:

1. Where's it hosted (many supposed UK data centres are not actually in the UK and are US located based on IP), although this should be a minor point as your using a .co.uk?
2. What's the NAP and local citations like, as this a big pointer to location for Google?
3. Where do most inbound links come from, if they're US Google gives importance to this?
4. Rather than have Google guess, tell it what you want to via your schema markup; e.g. have you got your UK location, companies house details, proper language markup (en-gb), GBP on products if your ecommerce etc?
   

 

[Fagin2021]

Loads of things impact this:

1. Where's it hosted (many supposed UK data centres are not actually in the UK and are US located based on IP), although this should be a minor point as your using a .co.uk?
2. What's the NAP and local citations like, as this a big pointer to location for Google?
3. Where do most inbound links come from, if they're US Google gives importance to this?
4. Rather than have Google guess, tell it what you want to via your schema markup; e.g. have you got your UK location, companies house details, proper language markup (en-gb), GBP on products if your ecommerce etc?

Thanks Paul.

No, not all those things are in place, but do you really think that Google can't work out that a website....

1. With a .co.uk TLD.
2. Hosted in the UK (where the servers are based)
3. Has the Ltd company name, UK address and 'phone number in the footer on every page.
4. Has company details and registration number on the contact page.
4. Uses GB English throughout.
5. Often includes 'UK' in the meta Title tag on different pages.

.. is actually a UK site ?

I find that hard to believe (or worrying if true)!

 

[Paul Carmen]

@Fagin2021 Google can work out where the site is, but actually couldn't care less, they're about showing the best results in organic rankings, based on their ever changing (secret) criteria.

A lot of this criteria can be reversed engineered to a point, by testing, or studied with various tools or software. Effectively think about it the other way around, as what I do know is that if you're not doing much of the detail above, then the sites that do will outrank you based on similar content quality.

We work with lots of clients who want to rank locally, regionally or nationally, and the NAP consistency, schema markup, GMB setup and citation details make a big difference here; e.g. Google takes very little notice of you/your location if you just have address/company details on your website, unless you heavily reinforce it.

This is all deliberate, as those who make an effort to setup/keep up to date NAP, plus add markup, reviews, trust signals etc, are in Google's eyes a much more legitimate business.

Equally, if you have a largely US based backlink profile and nothing else to tell Google you're specifically targeting the UK, then its often a case of not ranking well in your target location, but slightly better in a non targeted location.

Without seeing the site, the GSC setup, the backlink profile and a range of other metrics, it's hard to say if that's the cause, or a different issue, but it would be where we would start.

 

[Fagin2021]

@Fagin2021 Google can work out where the site is, but actually couldn't care less, they're about showing the best results in organic rankings, based on their ever changing (secret) criteria.

A lot of this criteria can be reversed engineered to a point, by testing, or studied with various tools or software. Effectively think about it the other way around, as what I do know is that if you're not doing much of the detail above, then the sites that do will outrank you based on similar content quality.

We work with lots of clients who want to rank locally, regionally or nationally, and the NAP consistency, schema markup, GMB setup and citation details make a big difference here; e.g. Google takes very little notice of you/your location if you just have address/company details on your website, unless you heavily reinforce it.

This is all deliberate, as those who make an effort to setup/keep up to date NAP, plus add markup, reviews, trust signals etc, are in Google's eyes a much more legitimate business.

Equally, if you have a largely US based backlink profile and nothing else to tell Google you're specifically targeting the UK, then its often a case of not ranking well in your target location, but slightly better in a non targeted location.

Without seeing the site, the GSC setup, the backlink profile and a range of other metrics, it's hard to say if that's the cause, or a different issue, but it would be where we would start.

I don't disagree with anything you say but it doesn't actually answer my question which was not 'why doesn't the site rank better?' but 'why, according to Search Console, does it seem to rank the same in both the UK and USA ?' It's the same site, so wouldn't you expect a UK ecommerce site to rank much lower for an ecommerce query in the USA ?

Incidentally, the older version of GSC had an International Targeting section where you could specify which countries you were targeting.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Your question can't be answered in forum, as context is key, because we don't have the keyword data or GSC access.

Does it really behave like that, we usually only see that with low ranking sites; e.g. page 3 or 4 of the UK and US is not really ranking.

Is that data spurious, GSC ranking data is never that accurate, as time period looked at, location, search history of users all cloud that ranking, plus our data from a lot of sites suggest it's not very accurate anyway.

Without proper research on your individual site, keywords and the market, I can't answer that. Running some incognito VPN based location tests to see real rankings, or using a 3rd party tool, would help you answer whether that is really happening.

 

[zanuda]

No, not all those things are in place, but do you really think that Google can't work out that a website....

It could but it's logic is different.
1) If you don't give a lot of indication that you're in UK for Google it meant that you trade everywhere.
2) If the user search for ITEM-NAME for Google it meant this person doesn't care where to boy. Besides "pearl neckless" could be anything, design, cool photos... you should check several queries "buy pearl neckless", "pearl neckless buy", "pearl neckless buy near me", you get the idea. And if the situation is the same then you have to check your site and analyse your competitiosr.