Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why do SERP Results ( Rankings ) differ from country to country ?
-
Hi, I have been doing seo for this client based in Sri lanka for almost 8 months now. Since we started SEO we had set up geographic target setting to UK through google webmaster tools.
At the moment Site is completely ranking higher on google uk & other countries except Sri Lanka . On Google.lk site doesn't even come within 1st 5 pages for keywords which are ranked on1st page in other countries ?
What do you think about this ? How does it happen ?
-
Sorry I do not have much. Basically I believe Google is running all kind of different tests on each database, collecting data then using it on major updates.
One possible way to check rankings for different databases is to connect through Proxy Servers, but I am not a big IT guy, so maybe someone else can answer you how to do that.
Istvan
-
Could you be kind enough to name few major factors that affect database data differentiation. ?
How do we get over with ?
-
You said you set up targeting for the UK so why are you concerned that it doesnt rank on Google.lk?
If you want to geo-target a website for a particular countries search results you'll find lots of good blog posts about how to do it right here on SEOMOZ. Aside from that heres a few pointers:
-
You really need the country specific TLD or at worst a country neutral one e.g. .net. If you want to target the uk then you will do much better having a co.uk TLD. If you DO have a co.uk TLD this is the main reason why you dont rank in Google.lk.
-
Ensure the website content is written in the language of the country you want to target.
-
Try and attract links from country specific tlds e.g. if you want to target google.lk search results try and get links from .lk websites e.g. website.lk
-
-
Hey Pyxle,
There are a lot of Google Databases all over the world. Depending on your browser location your query will differ depending on which Google Database you are connected to (Giving different results).
Google does test-test-test on each database, so there are a lot of factors that could differ from database to database.
I hope this helped,
Istvan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page rank and menus
Hi, My client has a large website and has a navigation with main categories. However, they also have a hamburger type navigation in the top right. If you click it it opens to a massive menu with every category and page visible. Do you know if having a navigation like this bleeds page rank? So if all deep pages are visible from the hamburger navigation this means that page rank is not being conserved to the main categories. If you click a main category in the main navigation (not the hamburger) you can see the sub pages. I think this is the right structure but the client has installed this huge menu to make it easier for people to see what there is. From a technical SEO is this not bad?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AL123al0 -
Brand name not ranking in Google
Hi Moz'ers, Could you help me with something I cannot seem to figure out by myself. In June 2017 my company started a rebranding campaign. We've changed our brand name and launched a new website: https://spotler.com. Everything is going fine, but if you Google our brand name "Spotler" our website doesn't show up. How can it be? Our domain authority is 38. It would be wonderful if you could help me. Let me know if you need more information. Best, Simone
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Spotler0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuations
Hi Guys I am currently working on a website where one of the keyword targets is fluctuating. The keyword is fluctuating between page 2 and page 5. What makes this strange is that we are not experiencing the issue with any other keyword targets. They are all ranking fine. It is only 1 keyword. The keyword target happens to be the main homepage keyword target - not sure if this makes a difference? The homepage targets 2 keyword e.g. Business Offices & Accessories. The homepage ranks perfectly fine for e.g. Business Accessories but is fluctuating for e.g. Business Offices! Very strange. What makes it even stranger - the keyword variations of the fluctuating keyword e.g. office for business - these variations are all fine and not fluctuating. Its only 1 keyword. If anyone has any ideas or feedback that would be great! Thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Sitemap: unique sitemap or different sitemaps by Country
Hi guys, i have a question about sitemaps. We are doing an international site, e.x. www.offers.com for landing page and www.offers.com/br for brazil, www.offers.com/it for italy, etc... i don't if we should do an unique sitemap for all countries or separate sitemaps by country, e.x.: unique sitemap: www.offers.com/sitemap.xml - including all sitemaps www.offers.com/br/sitemap.xml - sitemap for brazil market only. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thekiller990 -
Ranking 2 pages on the same domain in the same SERP
I thought it was generally said that Google will favour 1 page per domain for a particular SERP, but I have seen examples where that is not the case (i.e. Same domain is ranking 2 different pages on the 1st page of the SERPs...) Are there any "tricks" to taking up 2 first page SERP positions, or am I mistaken that this doesn't always happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ullamalm0 -
What is the difference between Multilingual and multiregional websites?
Hi all, So, I have studied about multilingual and multiregional websites. As soon as possible, we will expand the website languages to english and spanish. The urls will be like this: http://example.com/pt-br
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mobic
http://example.com/en-us
http://example.com/es-ar Thereby, the tags will be like this: Great! But my doubt is: To /es-ar/ The indexing will be only to spanish languages in Argentina? What about the other countries that speak the same language, like Spain, Mexico, etc.I don't know if it will be possible develop a Spanish languages especially for each region. Should I do an multiregional website or only multilingual? How Google sees this case? Thanks for any advice!!1 -
How to rank for a location/country without having a physical address in that location/country
How do I go about it if my physical address (office) is in Country A but I want to rank my website in Country B, C and D (without having an office or physical address in the countries B, C and D)? I am aware of people setting up virtual offices in other countries/cities and adding them to Google Places/Maps with toll free phone numbers, but I don't wish to do any of that. I know Google will catch up with this one day or the other and punish me hard for trying to play games with it. Is there a way rank a website in another country without actually having a physical location there? If yes, please guide me how to go about it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__0 -
Help! The website ranks fine but one of my web pages simply won't rank on Google!!!
One of our web pages will not rank on Google. The website as a whole ranks fine except just one section...We have tested and it looks fine...Google can crawl the page no problem. There are no spurious redirects in place. The content is fine. There is no duplicate page content issue. The page has a dozen product images (photos) but the load time of the page is absolutely fine. We have the submitted the page via webmaster and its fine. It gets listed but then a few hours later disappears!!! The site has not been penalised as we get good rankings with other pages. Can anyone help? Know about this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890