server geography... biiiiiiig question!

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kevinro

Joined: Mar 28, 2004

# Posts: 46

Posted: 09/12/2004 01:02 pm

That's veeeery, veeeeery interesting.

Go to http://www.google.com/apis/download.html and download Google Web APIs. Then unzip everything in a separate directory. In the root of this directory, you will see a document called APIs_Reference.html. Open it and read point 2.4 - language restrict.

There is a veeeery interesting statement there: "Google allows you to search for Web information within one or more countries, using an algorithm that considers the top level domain name of the server and the geographic location of the server IP address."

Now, why is this interesting. If one searches with google.com or google.ro "web design" or "web design romania", restricted the search to Romanian pages or Romanian language, my website doesn't even show up in the first 10 pages (it's lost somewhere, I never had the curiosity to see where). However, if one searches "firma de web design" ("web design company" in Romanian) my site (www.ksd.ro) is on the first page. Equally, if one searches for "web design bucuresti" ("web design bucharest" in Romanian) the site is on page 2. So it does very well in searches "web design" related searches, that omit "romania" word.

And now the bomb. My site is hosted in USA. So it seems that servers' location does really count when Google returns results. More than page optimization, copy, page title, domain and so on. What do you think?

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Logan

Moderator

Joined: Aug 14, 2002

# Posts: 3749

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Posted: 09/12/2004 07:08 pm

i think you are right on the mark and interpreting things correct kevinro. Server location does matter regarding geo search results

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Rezac

Joined: Jan 25, 2004

# Posts: 811

Posted: 09/12/2004 09:27 pm

That's a nice tidbit to know. smile

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kevinro

Joined: Mar 28, 2004

# Posts: 46

Posted: 09/12/2004 09:41 pm

Yes, I have made a search on this and I found little information, however it seems that some smart guys already knew about this: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21541

For me, this is the most amazing eek

fact that I have learned this year. In fact, I dont't know what to say: am I amazed? ... am I angry? (we have invested a lot of time in optimizing the website) ... I would definitely want to know if the guys from Google have ever heard about "globalisation" (we are in the middle of it) and if so, what are they thinking that "globalisation" is ...

This unbeliveably stupid criteria is like diving a Toyota and everyone thinking that you are a Japanese... huh

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kevinro

Joined: Mar 28, 2004

# Posts: 46

Posted: 09/12/2004 10:40 pm

And I am curious. If one lives in USA, let's say in Anchorage, Alaska and has the website hosted in Vancouver, Canada: what will Google think? Or even if the business is based in Florida and the hosting in Texas. Does this means that if someone searches for "[business domain] florida", the site will have to fight hard in order to show up?!

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Logan

Moderator

Joined: Aug 14, 2002

# Posts: 3749

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Posted: 09/12/2004 11:22 pm

kevinro, the function is not related to states like texas and florida... but instead results for country specific searhes

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biggman

Joined: Aug 31, 2004

# Posts: 34

Posted: 09/13/2004 09:30 am

interesting....

OK, what happens if you are based in Canada, have your servers in Canada (hosted in Canada), but your primary market is the US? Would we be better off to host our sites in the US???

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unreviewed

Joined: Dec 07, 2000

# Posts: 6776

Posted: 09/13/2004 09:52 am

The only difference I see in results within North America is the ad's. You can use a site like www.anonymizer.com to test this for yourself.

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biggman

Joined: Aug 31, 2004

# Posts: 34

Posted: 09/13/2004 04:24 pm

thanks!

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Rezac

Joined: Jan 25, 2004

# Posts: 811

Posted: 09/13/2004 07:06 pm

good stuff.

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Dorian

Joined: Aug 13, 2001

# Posts: 533

Posted: 09/14/2004 06:32 am

The server location has always played a part in Google's results. But its relatively easy to work around it either by using domain names or server locations. What are you trying to achieve here?

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