I'm not altogether clear on this, perhaps someone can shed some light, but as I understand it, Google has various 'hubs' (I don't know if they have a more exact name) that serve results for various geographic regions and those results are tailored, to an extent, to provide more geographically relevant results. That is to say, if you are in London and you search for "Chinese restaurant" you will get different results from someone in New York.
It seems that even results for the same search phrase on google.com and google.co.uk (world wide results) are quite different. For example, I rank at 36 on google.com but when I search on google.co.uk I rank at number 11 for the same phrase (and 12 on UK only results, which is odd because I only actively target the UK
).
And this is relevant here because...?
Ah ha! I have recently been trying a free web based service by Sitening who offer a SERP Tracker service but I notice that the positions they are reporting were different from what I expected, not huge differences, say between 5 and 20 places out and generally down
, but then I noticed that they are based in Nashville, TN and I assume that their server is not far away so the results that they report are likely to be US or even Tennessee biased which, in its self is quite interesting, but not really that useful to me.
I would guess that a download software program like those that Doug recommended above and another that I have already downloaded but haven't used yet, by WebCEO, are likely to produce results that reflect more accurately the results I would consider to be 'accurate'. That is to say, the results that I get as an average punter, in the UK, doing a regular search. On the other hand, I think I read somewhere, I think that it was in one of the sales pitches for one of these, that unless the download programs are carefully manipulated to simulate human search activity the search engines, that you are submitting hundreds of searches to in a very short space of time, may block your IP for a while for SPAM or unfair use or whatever. I think it was in minutes or hours but still a pain in the...
Does any one know the % of UK located google searches that are done on the .com compared to the .co.uk? Is there a list of these 'hubs' and is it possible to see what results the different give?
Also,
am I obsessed with google?
