How do I get my site to rank in the right country?
-
I work with an organization in the United States that purchased a 3 letter .com domain from another company based in the Netherlands. After transferring the domain and setting up the new site we've completed the following:
- Registered the site in Webmaster Tools and selected the United States as the international target target
- Used Schema Markup on the US business address
- Built links from US based websites
- Setup a Google My Business site and verified the address
- All site content is in english
- Requested removal of links from sites in the Netherlands that were linking to the old website
- Disavowed all links from the Netherlands that refused to remove links to the old website
Despite these actions, our website rarely shows up in Google.com search results. However, we're in the top 10 for many of the same queries when performing searches at Google.nl - Interestingly enough, if we set our location for the US and do a search in Google.nl we do not show up in the search results.
It has been about 18 months since we've completed these actions and Google still assumes our website is best served and targeted towards people in the Netherlands. Is there anything else we can do to fix this?Thanks! -
Was the previous site in the your same niche?
That would explain its "stubborn" high visibility in Google.nl, because you should also consider all the not linked mentions the site may have had in its history.
Hreflang surely would be of help, but sincerely I don't know how you can implement it, because it was not thought for sites targeting only one country, but for multilingual and multi-country, hence Google Webmaster Tool could see it as a mistake and won't consider it.
-
Thanks for taking a look and the tips.
Link removal request and disavow was recommended by our contacts at Bing and Google.
Server is not hosted in the Netherlands, however, the old company did host it there.
I understand ranking in the US is more difficult, but the only difference in the search results between the two countries is that we show up in the Netherlands and we don't in the US. every other site ranking is the same.
I'll take a look at the hreflang tab.
Thanks!
-
The last two points seemed a bit drastic:
- Requested removal of links from sites in the Netherlands that were linking to the old website
- Disavowed all links from the Netherlands that refused to remove links to the old website
The US is a much bigger market than the Netherlands so it's more difficult to rank for anything. Your issue could just be that.
You seem to have covered most things but you haven't mentioned the rel hreflang tag: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
Is your server hosted in the Netherlands? I'm thinking out loud, but it shouldn't matter if everything else is set up correctly. How about a US-based phone number? Every signal you can send should help. Are there any customer reviews on the Google page?
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
-
Search engine keyword rank - easiest way to check the keywords that rank across website
What is the best keyword ranking tool you have used? I have used various tools by which I am expected to identify and input the keyword I want to track... However, recently I was introduced to Searchmetrics, which I think automatically pulls in the keywords a website ranks for, without the need for manual input from the SEO (I haven't used this tool yet, so apologies if I am incorrect!). Do any other rank trackers work like this? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Google cache is showing my UK homepage site instead of the US homepage and ranking the UK site in US
Hi There, When I check the cache of the US website (www.us.allsaints.com) Google returns the UK website. This is also reflected in the US Google Search Results when the UK site ranks for our brand name instead of the US site. The homepage has hreflang tags only on the homepage and the domains have been pointed correctly to the right territories via Google Webmaster Console.This has happened before in 26th July 2015 and was wondering if any had any idea why this is happening or if any one has experienced the same issueFDGjldR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adzhass0 -
My website has dropped in the rankings drastically. How can I get it back up the SERPs?
I manage a website that I took over 6 months ago - the site was sitting happily on page one of google so I haven't had to do much to keep it there - other than a few onsite improvements. However, last week the site dropped off the SERPs. The site is http://www.pro-techairconditioning.co.uk/content/home.html Could someone please suggest reasons for this and ways to solve the problem? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SWD.Advertising0 -
Rankings Tanked since new Site redesign land new url Structure ? Anything Glaringly Obvious I need to check ?
Hi All, I've just checked my rankings and everything on my eCommerce Site has pretty much tanked really badly since my new URL structure and site redesign was put in a place 2 weeks ago. My url structure was originally long and had underscores but we have now made it clean, shorter and use hyphens. We also have location specific pages and we have incorporated these into the new url structure.Basically it now pretty much follows the breadcrumb trail on our website. We were originally a general online hire site but now we have become niche and only concentrating on one types of products, so we got rid of all the other categories/products and pages we do not deal with anymore. Our Rankings issue , was only bought to light in the most recent MOZ Ranking report so it's looking site google hates our new store. Someone mentioned the other day, that Google may have been doing a Panda/Penguin refresh last weekend, but I am surprised to have dropped like 20 to 50 places for most of my keywords. We have set up the 301 redirects, We have also made the site alot smaller and set up a few thousand 404's to get rid of a lot of redundant pages . We have cut down massively on the thin/duplicate content and have lots of good new content on there. We did new sitemaps , set up schema.org. , increase text to code ratio . Setup our H1-H5 tags on all our pages. made site mobile responsive.. Basically , we are trying to do everything right. Is there anything glaringly obvious , I should be checking ?. I attach a Short url link if anyone wants to have a quick glance- http://goo.gl/7mmEx i.e Could it be a problem with the new urls or anything else that I should be looking at ?.. I.e how can I check to make sure the link juice is being passed on to the new url ? Or is all this expected when doing such changes ? Any advice greatly appreciated .. Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
.com ranked where .co.uk site should After Manual Penalty Revoked - Help!!!
Hi All, I wondered if some could help me as I am at my wits end. Our website www.domain.co.uk was hit with a manual penalty back in April 26th 2012 for over optomizing our inbound links and after 9 reconciliation request later and over a year and many links removed the penalty was revoked. Yay I hear you cry! During the year .co.uk was banned we built .com yet did not build any links to it. The purpose of the .com site was to attract an American audience for our products. .com was hosted on a US server and Geo Targeting set to United States in WMT. So here is my problem after the ban was revoke we expected .co.uk to spring back to some reasonable positions. Nope that is not the case Google now is ranking our .com site where our .co.uk should be for powerdull keywords in position 1st to 10th .com has Zero link equity and .co.uk is very reasonable, So how can I rectify this balls ups and get co.uk listed back where it should be…. I am not bothered where .com ranks. Note: To the best of my knowledge there are NO cross domain 301 or the like only an image link between the two sites. I have posted this on WMT forum and it has fallen on deaf ears! ....help me MOZ members you’re my only hope! Thanks in advance Richard PS: If anyone would like the URL’s in question PM me and I will let you know.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tricky-400 -
What is the best way to rank well in two countries simultaneously with only one CCTLD
I have a .co.nz website and would like to rank on .com.au without setting up a new country specific website for .com.au. What is the best way to do this ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveK640 -
High ranked web site on Google GONE - but webspam team says nothing wrong
We purchased several weeks ago a .org blog that has been highly ranked (number 1 on competetive keywords) for at least a year. it is a blog We moved the blog to our IP range and it went from #1 on top keyword and first page on another to the home page just gone. Now there was a secondary page indexed that stayed on page 5 for the keyword the home page was ranked #1 but the home page (which was high ranked page is just gone) We wrote the Google Webmaster team for reconsideration but they wrote back and said the web spam team said nothing wrong. A contact of mine who works for one of the most well known SEO compaines in the world says because we moved it the site could disappear for a week or so but the "algos would realize" and return it to that top spot soon. Does anyone know anything about moving a site to new IP and issues that can result?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TBKO0 -
How to get your company on the Google +, Right Hand side box of search results?
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-plus-content-replaces-ads/41452/ We have a Google plus page, but the results aren't coming up there Do you need a certain amount of people in your circles, what is the criteria to get your brand here? Any links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0