Huge difference in search results depending on the country?
-
I have some keywords ranking in pages 2 and 3 in the US but for instance, in Canada, the same keywords rank somewhere between pages 15 and 25.
When I check my US rankings, I use a Windows VPS located in the US. When I check my rankings in Canada, I use a computer physically located in Canada.
Basically, about 80% of my rankings have gone away for countries other than the US. I have not set any geographical target for my website in GWT.
How come there is such a big difference in search results across different countries?
-
-
One thing to note is that Google usually pushes all its updates to the US first, then if they are successful, pushes those updates to other countries.
.ca could be using some older algorithms that are easy to spam (although there is plenty of that in .com as well).
-
As Oleg rightly points out, there are a number of factors which can impact on your ability to rank well in different countries. To rank well in a number of countries you would need to build links from each of those countries. I suspect the bulk of your links are probably from US based sites and therefore you rank well there but no in other locations.
There are of course other factors which come into play, particularly relevance, and Google may deem your content is more relevant to a US audience than other countries.
-
I am fascinated by the fact that on Google.ca, I am outranked by .co.uk websites as well as really thin content sites.
7 results out of the top 10 have literally tens of thousands of spammy backlinks.
-
A lot depends on the keywords being searched and also on the backlinks the website has. G may deem your website to be better suited for a US audience (based on content, keywords and linking domains) than the Canadian audience (who's serps will contain many more .ca sites and those targeting Canada in GWT).
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
-
Viewing search results for 'When searching in google we find our site in the first position but when some others search it is seen on the second page 1 st position why is this happening?'
Viewing search results for 'When searching in google we find our site in the first position but when some others search it is seen on the second page 1 st position why is this happening?'
Search Behavior | | Alyaauditors0 -
Drop in Android organic search
Hay Moz Community, I have been analysing traffic fluctuations for a few websites and have found a noticeable drop in organic traffic from android devices. I initially thought it could be a generic mobile drop but iOS is holding its own? Can anyone share any insights they may have come across to explain the drop on android specifically. Thank you in advance
Search Behavior | | JBGlobalSEO
Alex0 -
Search Analytics update in Google Webmasters Tools? Where can we find search queries bringing traffic to website?
I just got up and see Search Analytic's being updated today totally. Their is no option to see old reports. As Search Analytics only share 999 keywords.
Search Behavior | | csfarnsworth
Whats next now?
How can a webmaster finds all search queries bringing traffic to his website?
Any paid or free tool?
Google Analytic's > Acquisition > Search engine optimization > search queries will this area helps? Whole question revolves around. Any good tool that will help you find all the queries bringing traffic to my website?0 -
HUGE spike in Google Analytics Traffic
Hi there, I am witnessing a giant spike in my Google Analytics data (website: www.exchangecapital.com ) and I am completely stumped. My website usually gains roughly 15-20 visitors a day at most--and as of 11:10 am today my sessions for the day are up to 150. The traffic spike started on Friday at 132 sessions, Saturday at 261, Sunday at 247, etc. It's common that our sessions don't even hit the double digits over the weekends, so you can imagine my confusion. After trying to pin down some irregularities in geography, browser, and behavior, I'm still at a loss. I'm seeing a big spike in organic traffic (all not provided), as well as direct page visits, and I'm gaining traffic from US, Brazil, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Malaysia, etc. etc--so not just one specific area. Is anyone else witnessing this in their data? Does anyone have any insight or ideas as to how I can look further into this? I am at a loss and any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Lauren McLaughlin
Search Behavior | | LMcLaughlin0 -
Google site: search showing twice amount of indexed pages. why?
I have around 50k pages indexed on my site but when I do a google site: of my site it shows around 100k pages indexed. Why is it showing so much more? It is also only showing around 700 pages indexed in my web masters account for the site. Background: We have a custom site map being generated automatically. Let me know if you would like more info, Thanks.
Search Behavior | | Nicktaylor10 -
UK & Ireland Websites displaying same page differently in serps
Hi there, I have a Magento Enterprise store based in the UK and we have an Irish version which we created after finding an increasing amount of traffic from Ireland. One thing that I don't understand, is that if I search for one keyword on Google, the websites are displayed differently, when effectively they are identical websites. Here is how a result looks like for my UK store: http://i.imgur.com/NKSt4Qq.png And here is how a result looks like for my IE store: http://i.imgur.com/Cynv8Mz.png They both have the same Meta description, barring a few geographical words and terms. Both have on page descriptions as well as products. Yet the IE results display the description and the UK results display products and a tiny snippet of the description. Any ideas on how I can make my UK pages display like the IE one? Or, just why they are both displayed differently? Thanks
Search Behavior | | tomhall900 -
Getting People to Leave Product Reviews, When they've reached our site in search of reviews
We have a product review website that has been showing a steady increase in organic traffic. However we seem to be having a disconnect between what happens when a visitor arrives. We essentially want a visitor coming to our website in search of a review, to LEAVE a review for another product they may have used... Any suggestions on ways we might encourage this? We are kind of newbies at this!
Search Behavior | | Sarah_Frantz0 -
Two sites with different URLs
I help organize an ecommerce site for a company that is named after the state that the company was founded in (ex: Florida Pipes). Our programmer is thinking about creating a duplicate site that would have a name that was more location agnostic so people shopping on the site would not think that they may be ordering from far away hence incurring extra shipping charges. He said that the site would only have a different URLs, name and homepage but would link to all of the same stuff that is on the site that is up now. He said that there would be no way to tell (possibly for the layperson) that the two sites were related. Is this a good practice? Would we be penalized in search results for having two URLs linking to the same content? (We are a 30 year old company that ranks very high for our main keyword) Thank you for your input!
Search Behavior | | Winoman0