Helping Google recognise your site is from a particular country

Over the past few months there have been a lot of talks and discussions on the current state the SERPs are in as many may have seen .ie sites ranking in with the UK SERPs. This has confused a lot of people and many have stated that it is due to issues with Google in which Matt Cutts, who works for the Search Quality group, has stated that Google are aware of this and working to correct.

However he has stated that an .ie site should rank in the UK serps if they are relevant to the UK, so that is definitely something to think about.

Some important things to consider that may help your site be seen by Google as a site from a particular country are:

1. Country code TLD (ccTLD) such as .de or .fr – If targeting a particular country it would be best practise to have the correct country code.

2. Geo-targeting in the webmaster console – This has been around for some time now, however you may not be aware of this. Within Google Webmaster Tools you can set the geo target. So, for example, if you have a .com site and want to rank in the UK, you can set the geo targeting to the UK.

3. Host Location – It has been suggested that hosting your site in the targeting country will help with geo targeting and rankings in the specific targeted country.

Kenneth Berkley
SEO Programmer