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Google.ie showing UK Results?
What do you do when you’re blogging regularity turns into a stubbornly long hiatus? Do a bit of Google bashing 
So why when I go to Google.ie and search for ‘reach and wash window cleaning’ (‘web search’) do they give me a whole bunch of UK sites?
Google search for ‘reach and wash window cleaning’
Has anyone else noticed this?
Try using the ‘pages from Ireland’ radio button
Comment by Alan — May 16, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Hi Alan
Recent research shows that less than 20% of users utilise that function in the UK. I would expect that to be pretty indicative of Irish behaviour also.
The point I’m making is that if I go to Google.co.uk and repeat this search they dont show me a bunch of Irish websites.
Thanks for dropping by, rgds
Richard
Comment by Richard Hearne — May 16, 2008 @ 10:38 am
Lawn experts is another. I’m wondering is it due to the lack of Irish sites for that keyword?
Comment by Gavin — May 16, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Only thing is if you select ‘PFI’ you get a decent enough result set.
I see you were #1 for ‘seo ireland’ the other day Gavin – did you notice that?
Rgds
Richard
Comment by Richard Hearne — May 16, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
I did notice the position although I would prefer if your site replaced mine considering I’m not active in the field.
Comment by Gavin — May 16, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
Should Google.ie default to returning pages from Ireland? Without pressing the radiobutton – I think so.
Richard – I think that there are alot of industries out there who haven’t yet jumped on the web bandwagon. Window washing probably being one of them – I’d hasten a guess that the UK sites would be easy to topple – with onpage ranking factors being the main reason they are at the top of the chain. I may be wrong, but backlinks / social bookmarking / linkbait – isn’t that high on the average window washers agenda.
Comment by Paul Anthony — May 18, 2008 @ 8:53 am
Hi Paul
In general Google applies a bias to local sites in local search properties, even when searching the web. If they didn’t we’d likely see a lot of US sites for this query. But for some reason we’re getting UK results when we shouldn’t. I wouldn’t underestimate window washers jump onto the web mind – if you check the results many of the ranking pages are homepages not inner-pages, so it’s less likely that on-page factors are driving this. You’d generally see far more inner pages if it was otherwise.
Thanks for the observations,
Rgds
Richard
PS – I actually wouldn’t want PFI pre-selected for searches on google.ie.
Comment by Richard Hearne — May 18, 2008 @ 9:30 am
I’ve been seeing really large swings in the last few days, maybe they are playing around and tweaking their regional algorithms again. I know they do it quite a lot. These things keep me on my toes !
Comment by paul — May 20, 2008 @ 8:46 am
Hello Richard, is it just Google UK or other Google sites?
This does appear to help Irish websites hoping to sell into the UK…
Comment by Kevin — May 20, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Hi Paul – defo lots of volatility in the SERPs recently. Sometimes bordering crazy IMO.
Hi Kevin – this is actually UK results appearing on Google.ie web searches. SO not much help to Irish sites on any count LOL
Rgds to both
Richard
Comment by Richard Hearne — May 20, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Richard – Thanks for clearing that up.
Have selected the geo targetting tool a couple of months back to target UK. Desn’t appaers to have had any effect yet.
Comment by Kevin — May 20, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
I’ve been noticing major updates in the serps this past week. This past change only seemed to happen in the past 2 days. I’ve been monitoring under the keywords: mortgages, remortgages, etc. I only noticed a flood of uk sites yesterday. I’m sure it’ll be corrected in the next few days
Comment by Leo — June 7, 2008 @ 1:35 pm