UK Google Results .com V's .co.uk

[GrouchyKids]

In the UK lots of people use google.com rather than google.co.uk.

See: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/04/how_popular_is_googles_pages_from__the_uk_search_option.html

The above data is a bit out of date but still I know lots of UK people who search on google.com.

When I depersonalise the results and search there is a difference between what I see on google.com V's what I see on google.co.uk.

Indeed one of the companies I work for ranks ok on google.co.uk, but not so well on google.com

Questions:

How would I best track ranking for UK based users who use google.com AND/OR google.co.uk using the SEOmoz tools (or other tools if appropriate)?

I note that in "Google Webmaster Tools" you can change the setings to "Target users in United Kingdom".  Given the fact that UK users use both google.com AND/OR google.co.uk would it be better to change this to unlisted or deselect the "Target users in" option?

Thanks in advance.

Justin

[My-Favourite-Holiday-Cottages]

Heres some 2010 data showing google /overall/ share going up http://www.adept-seo.co.uk/uk-search-engine-usage-statistics-2010.html

Last stat I heard from an SEO was about 90%+ use .co.uk, but I've never seen their source

As a way out finding out the comparision, you could identiify what causes people to not be re-directed correctly, and then work out what % of users that is (as that should be most of everyone unless your dealing with tech crowd)

That would also answer if it is possable or not to track the data.

On boosting your rankings If they're on .com and not showing the uk pages, then they're being treated as an international. In which case anything that would boost traffic from the US for example, would probably work on them as well. Namely Global relivence signals.

Of course, if your UK only, this might be somewhat difficult to do.

[GrouchyKids]

Thanks for the insight...

"Google trys to redirect you to .co.uk these days"

Thats just what I said to the client unfortunately it doesn't seem to happen when they search HO HUM.

"googles been going up constantly in the UK"

Would love to know where you got the data from, I cannot find it online.

"i would recomend leaving it as targeting UK users"

I won't change anything unless I have strong evidence to do so, so no worries.

So...

Does anyone have up to date info on UK Google.com V's Google.co.uk traffic?

Anyone know how to push up rankings for UK users searching on Google.com?

Thanks in advance,

Justin

[My-Favourite-Holiday-Cottages]

Just a tangental note. Google trys to redirect you to .co.uk these days, that data there is also /very/ out of date, googles been going up constantly in the UK.

On to your (2nd) question, you sand to lose more from losing your UK listing then you stand to gain in relivence elsewhere. People from the UK who are serching on .com still have their location data unless they depersonalise, so I would suspect you'd only see an improvment on those who go out of their way to depresonalise their results, AND use google.com. As such i would recomend leaving it as targeting UK users.

Not entirely sure of a reliable way to track people from the UK who use .com. I would suspect a large portion of those are due to google incorectly resolving the ip e.t.c. to overseas, in which case you would get the same data.