Different rankings for same keyword in different geo locations

[hpk]

I am listed at # 11 in google.com.pk for a same keyword but listed 4th when I use &gl=us in the same query or use a US ip address. Could this be because google's recent update and maybe they are taking time to push the update towards other countries or something else?

In any case I see decent rankings when I use the query in google.com or when I use gl=us, but lower quality results in google.com.pk so please guide what is going on.

Thanks in advance for guidance (y)

[JaneCopland]

Hi Israr,

Since your site is properly targeted to Pakistan in Webmaster Tools, don't worry about having a .com domain as opposed to .com.pk. The WMT configuration does that job perfectly.

I would be tempted to guess that one of a number of things is happening: It could very well be that the US results are being affected by recent updates and those updates haven't rolled out to the rest of the world yet (the US usually sees updates first; in the first Panda roll-out, it took Google a long time to extend the roll-out past the US. I remember being at a search conference in Poland over a month after Panda was released in the US and people kept bugging the Google rep about when it would come to Europe!). In this case, you might be in for a good ranking improvement in Pakistan soon.

It also might be the case that there is more competition for the term you want to rank for in Pakistan than there is in the US. If the query pertains especially to Pakistani audiences (mentions location, is about a product or service only available in Pakistan, etc.) then other competitors might have fared better in providing adequate localised signals, whereas your site might be appealing to a more general audience (as far as the signals it gives Google are concerned).

Is your website hosted in Pakistan? The location of a website's hosting should not be a major factor at all, but it can make a small difference if Google has trouble figuring out what the intended target country is. Your WMT geo-location should have taken care of this though, even if the site is hosted in the US or elsewhere.

Also, do you have a good number of links from other Pakistani websites, whether they be .com.pk domains, sites hosted in Pakistan, and sites with a lot of Pakistani links themselves? Again, not a massive ranking factor, but if most of your links come from the US or other foreign countries, this isn't as good of a location signal as if you have a lot of links from other local websites.

To be honest, I think that the first scenario is more likely and that a movement upwards in the US results is a good sign...

[hpk]

Thanks for the kind response.

The .com.pk rankings are almost same, but US rankings have improved in the last one month. I have started a blog and some new content etc.

Unfortunately my domain tld ends in .com not in .com.pk

The webmaster tools are configured for Pakistan geo location as well, also not a personalised search. It is disabled for these queries.

Regards,

[Antony_Towle]

Have these rankings always been different like this or just changed recently ?

Possibly your content is just more relevant towards US searchers, have you set geo targeting in your webmaster tools? ,But i would expect the results from different countries versions of Google to be different,

Is your website using a .com TLD or a .com.pk ?

Are you sure your results are not being altered for personalized when you are looking at this ?. i use the browser extensions from Yoast to which i think is the best way to ensure your results are accurate and un-personalised for different countries? Also you could use the Moz rank tracker for different countries and see what it gives you ?,

https://yoast.com/tools/seo/disable-personalized-search-plugin/

Hope this helps,

James