The key factor is the hosting. A US-based IP is giving the Geotargeting system information that your site is a US site.

.com will rank work with a UK IP.

but can I use my .co.uk domain name to help in anyway?

if its not too late, use the .co.uk domain name, you might be amazed at the result,

mind you, then you probably won't rank for anything in the US

Do not just point your .co.uk to redirect to .com you need to use .co.uk as the main domain. UK only account for a fraction of US traffic so expect a NET loss in traffic but for the better.

Best to get (more expensive) hosting the UK really.

[edited by: Johan007 at 12:10 pm (utc) on Mar. 25, 2008]

BTW, you can use the .com domain if it is hosted in the UK.

thanks for the replies guys.

I'm afraid it is too late to use the UK domain as my primary as my website is branded with the dot com name.

So to rank on UK search engines the only thing I can now do is move my site to a UK host?

>to rank on UK search engines the only thing I can now do is move my site to a UK host

No, not the only thing, but it's the main thing that will make the biggest single difference, primarily because of geolocation delivery tools.

Other things you can do is to obtain as many UK-based and UK-relevant inbound links from UK directories/journals, industry-specialists, etc. Remember, it will not have the same effect/impact as the geolocation filtering of a UK server.

I have obtained inbound links from directories. Not many. Between 10 and 20.

I did this back in December. Still not getting any results within Google UK. Should I have seen something by now? Or do these things take time?

>Still not getting any results within Google UK

Have you got the UK hosting IP address yet?

I have a .co.uk domain name. But my host is American. And my primary domain name is a .com. I don't have a UK host.

Change your host to a UK based one.

You can host your .com in the uk, and it will help rank in UK searches however you will stop ranking as well in US searches.

RJ

I will be hosting my dot com in the UK once my American hosting has ended.

Thanks for all the advice.

Another small way to help with your UK ranking is to get links from .co.uk domains also hosted in the UK. for example local websites, directories and information websites.

RJ

It dose matter which server you are hosting your website on to. As you have a server located in US then to rank your self well for search engines in UK you need to get links from .co.uk domains.

I would still stick with the .com as the main URL for your business. many users expect businesses to have a .com address.

.com is not a country spoecific domain extension, it is international and can be used anywhere.

Mack.

Hi,

I'm interested to read this as I'm having a similar problem. In my case I have a .co.uk domain, no .com domain, and my server is based in the U.K. I have links from predominently .co.uk websites, all my prices are in pounds...My products are musical instruments so no reason the americans would be more interested, My geo-location thing is set to UK in google.

But still have a massively greater number of US visitors compared to U.K. Is there anything else you can think of to improve the amount of U.K visitors?

I should say my rankings for keywords are similar in google, and google UK searches.

Thanks
Tom

Well I have found out why my US numbers were a lot higher. I have recently been updating the site a lot. I did some tests and have realised my stats program registers my own page views of the site as coming from the US.

This is despite the fact I am in the UK along with my website. I don't know why this is happening but thought I should point it out.

>my stats program registers my own page views of the site as coming from the US.

That's a weird one, and totally unhelpful.

Time to get a new stats package, methinks.

ADDED

Can you see the BBC video content for the Beijing Games? If you can, the BBC system detects you as UK. If you can't then you might want to have a word with your ISP about your own IP.

Yes, I'm using awstats from in the cpanel of my hosting. I couldn't find any way to block my IP from registering in that. I've just added GA and have filtered myself out of those results, so hopefully problem solved. I can watch the Olympics so I guess my IP is o.k.

Oh, yeah, and welcome to WebmasterWorld, tomhumf.

Thanks, I love this site :)

I have several UK sites and they are hosted by UK and US companies. I have never paid any attention to the country of the hosting company. My sole method is to have "UK" in the title (e.g. lots of UK widgets) and a fair smattering of "UK" in the content. Works a treat for me.

tomhumf, many Service providers including AOL and I think NTL etc, leave a US Footprint for their UK located visitors. Further, AOL indicates several visits for one page because it fetches files and images etc in parallel using different proxy fetchers.

All this will give a distorted impression of the number of US located visitor numbers.

Thanks for that. I do have a smattering of UK in the content. Looking at G analytics I now see I have 66% UK visitors, which seems alright for the time being.