When is Google.co.uk Not Google.co.uk?
March 10, 2008
When it’s Google.com that’s when.
What am I talking about? Well in the UK we have slight Google issue, namely we don’t know which one we should be using. Around 17% of Brits use Google.com when searching for a UK based website. Nothing wrong with that, except the small fact that it doesn’t return the same results as when you search the same phrase in Google.co.uk.
hmmm! A small geo targeting issue methinks and one that Google should get ironed out as soon as possible. It makes life that wee bit harder for us UK based search agencies.
Let me explain.
.com domains are international domains, not US domains (sorry America). The US does have its own domain .US but it’s a bit crummy and not many people like to use, unless its creatively - delicio.us anybody?
That means that many UK companies own .com domains and have them set to target the UK in their Google webmaster console. If we want to search for American websites we should be using Google.us no?
This is confusing for our searchers who are led by brand name. Not only that but browsers likeFirefox come with the search bar configured to Google.com
Come on Google sort this out now! It’s hard enough for our UK businesses to succeed on the search engines without our cousins across the pond muddying the waters with irrelevant results. A simple redirect is all it takes to retain quality and consistent UK search results.
When was the last time you felt like taking your dog to the vet in Michigan as opposed to the vets around the corner? Slackers.
EDIT: As I published this I realised that google.com is now redirecting to google.co.uk when typed directly into the address bar - the problem still remains when you use the IE or Firefox search bar, which most of us do.
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