crazydog

Hi,
I run an online store selling skate gear and it has been going very well over the last few years, appearing in search engines in top position or top 3 for our main keywords. Due to an increase in demand for the site we had to change hosts a month ago (we need a large bandwidth). We couldn't find a UK host with the kind of bandwidth we needed along with various other things but we found it in USA no problem.

We've only now just discovered, after trying to work out why our sales have been down, that we have dropped out of google UK results.

We use a .com domain but appeared in google UK results because our old host was UK based. We didn't think of this at the time.

90% of our business is from the UK and while people will just type in what they are looking for we are losing a lot of traffic from not being associated with the UK.

We own the .co.uk domain as well but we don't have anything on it, just a holding page it doesn't even redirect.

Our .com domain is many years old and established and our .co.uk domain has nothing pointing to it and is only 6 months old.

We are very happy with our new hosts, it's been a long time since we had hosting that worked with us so would rather not move.

What can we do to get our UK listings back?

I don't want to ditch the .com domain due to it being established.

Any suggestions? If anyone thinks this is in the wrong section could someone move this thread to a better place.

Thanks

Chart Music

Google Webmaster tools, www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
sign up, login, verify your site, set geographical location to UK.

Wait for Google to sort itself out. Job done

__________________
Eco Tours | Gift Baskets | Random Keyword

See a good post?
<--Give thanks by clicking left of post.

Chart Music

Actually just to add, the above will certainly help(and can be done quickly) but if your really want to optimise your website then consider locating your site in the physical area of the majority of your customers. The above Google workaround helps Google but it's not known (to me at least) what other search engines do.
Also your customers most likely want a fast website, and further data travels over the internet the more delayed it can be - especially as you say you have a high bandwidth usage, so again having your site(s) near your customers has some benefits.

__________________
Eco Tours | Gift Baskets | Random Keyword

See a good post?
<--Give thanks by clicking left of post.

searchacar

Try submitting your site again. Could possible google changed its alogrihtm. As you know most of websites from uk hosting from servers which are in usa.

__________________
Used Cars for Sale - Autos Forum

Chart Music

I doubt that submitting again will have a positive effect.

__________________
Eco Tours | Gift Baskets | Random Keyword

See a good post?
<--Give thanks by clicking left of post.

usearchme

Hi

Hmm i dont think resubmitting with do anything either, could be a hosting issue as the user posted

"As you know most of websites from uk hosting from servers which are in usa."

This would affect ur listings, if you had moved your hosting to a us company (though this is not widely agreed by many SEOs lol)

Other than that you would have to post ur site so we can have a look at it, is ur site still doing well on google.com ?

Although it could be just a wait and see, somtimes these things slowly resolve themselves !

Woc

__________________
Free Chat Rooms Free Online Chat Rooms

crazydog

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I thought I'd update.

My original host was in the UK (customer services and servers). I'd been with them since the start. I was paying a lot of money for the hosting because it was in the UK. They eventually couldn't accommodate the traffic the site was generating and the only hosts I could find that would accommodate the site at prices that were not crazy were in the US.

My site is in the top 3-5 in google.com for main search words and used to be number 1 in google UK.

After changing hosts, the site completely disappeared from google.uk but remained at the same position in google.com or maybe slightly better.

A few pages that were deep and had not been indexed since I changed host remained in google.uk but now they have even gone.

The hits from UK based users is very much down on what it should be as is the traffic.

I do have USA customers but due to the price of the dollar and shipping to USA not many people would buy items from a UK site. One note is that my US customers are about double the normal though this is not enough to make up for the UK loss as USA sales only ever made up 5% of all sales.

I made the webmaster tool changes within google about a week ago. I also used the local business google maps to locate the physical address. Nothing has changed.

I'm getting trade from USA, repeat customers and some UK but nothing what it was (it's not anything else as traffic is down). It is really hitting the business.

One other thing it doesn't seem to have such an affect on other search engines.

Do you think it will fix itself? Any other workarounds?


Thank you for all your answers so far.

I've got my fingers crossed the google webmaster tools will work

mars guitars

It sounds like a nightmare scenario... my business is UK-focused like yours, and I too rely on getting good ratings on Google.co.uk as wel as .com

Hopefully your webmaster submission will fix it, but it might also help a little to add 'UK' prominently in your site and in link anchor text. I've experimented with this and although not conclusive it does seem to help. Can you put some suitable text including 'UK' (e.g. "quick UK delivery") in a common header or footer? Also if you have large number of signature link that can be easily changed the try changing from 'skate gear' to 'skate gear UK' etc. Give Google more hints that you're still in the UK!

Other than that, you might have to rely on a big Adwords campaign until it sorts itself out.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

__________________
Guitar strings and accessories, Rotosound bass strings, Guitar Capos and Guitar Gifts from Mars Guitars UK
. . . .under development.. guitar string guide

Alan

It is my undertsanding that Google used the domain name extension to determine the most relevant country, if however no country extension s used it will then look to the IP of the server. See http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...oices-for.html, in particular the quote below.
which suggests that the Webmaster tool should redirect the search towards the selected country. Next from the same entry The suggestion here is that Google should list your site as a UK.

__________________

ahb Solutions Consultancy and Web Development

Seen a good post - Give some reputation click on the

rick22

Well you have to pay something for it and have to submit your site again....

__________________
You should have read the signature link rule first