Website ranking questions on Google product forums
I had a bit of an anomaly with Google rankings for my site. The main theme of my website is “top tips for holidays” and when I typed that keyword search term into Google.co.uk, my site was not getting ranked at all within the first 30 pages. However it was getting ranked on page 1 of various other Google locations. Below are the positions for my site using that search term as of yesterday:
- Google.com - position 7, page 1
- Google.fr - position 5, page 1
- Google.es - position 29, page 3
- Google.co.il - position 10, page 1
- Google.co.za - position 7, page 1
- Google.co.in - position 10, page 1
- Google.co.uk - not in the first 30 pages
As you can see these results on Google.co.uk made no sense. To try to help with the Google.co.uk rankings I have set the geographical targeting in Google Webmaster tools as “United Kingdom”. Plus the content of my site mentions the UK in quite a few places. This didn't seem to make any difference.
I went looking on Google to see if I could find an answer and came across the Google product forums where people can post questions to Google staff and other expert users. I posted my question regarding the scenario I was facing in the Google product forums and although I didn’t receive an answer directly, the very next day I checked the position of my site on Google.co.uk and it now appears at position 8 on page 1. I’m not sure if one of the Google people has tweaked something to affect the search results for my site’s main theme searched term, but posting in the Google product forums certainly seems to have helped.
There are many people post questions in those forums and lots of those questions have replies from expert users. So it is worth having a browse around in the different categories in the forums if you have any Google related questions, you might find the answer to that sticky problem you have been wrestling with.
Have a good day!!
Neil
Recent Comments
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Good info Neil, I too have tried it and like you it took a while to get an answer, but the information did come.
Hi Deos, Yes maybe someone tweaked a setting to sort it out and forgot to reply, but I replied to my original post anyway sending that someone a big fat THANK YOU for sorting it out.
Neil
Hey Neil, what were you using to check your rankings. I am having the same sort of problem but I'm not getting much luck with Jaxxy's Site Rankings to get an accurate picture. Are you using a quoted search on each google site?
That link to Google Product forums is very helpful. Thankyou for that. I have a question about dips in impressions which I will drop in there.
Hi Steven,
I do use Jaaxy but that only gives results for Google.com. For the searches from different Google locations I sign out of my Google account and then use an incognito tab in Chrome. This is so I get results as anyone else would see it (not personal results). I also use ?gl=us as a parameter in the search, us being the United States and chnage this to whatever location I want. E.g. www.Google.com/ and then ?gl=us after the forward slash. I hope this massage comes out properly because sometimes posts here at WA don't let you include parameters/code.
Thanks
Neil
Sorry Steven, just noticed your last question. No I am typing the keyword search in without any quotes just as people normally do when searching.
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Thank you Neil for sharing this information and the link with us! :)
Hi Christa,
You are welcome :)
I did get an answer in the end from one expert user, it just takes a while. I suppose they have lots of people asking lots of questions so it just takes time to get around to answering. The solution for me in the end was setting the geographical targeting to UK. It just took a while to work its way through Google's system. The guy who answered said that this action shouldn't unduly impact my rankings in other countries, so good news all round!!
Thanks
Neil
Hi Neil,
Wow, that really is great news! I will have to try the forums again. I tried them once and couldn't get the help I needed, but maybe I just didn't give it enough time!
Keep smiling,
Christa
Hi Christa,
I think I read somewhere that they wont answer if your post title makes it look like you are just trying to boost your rankings or spamming. Genuine calls for help is what they are looking for. So I just looked at the titles of posts that had received lots of answers and fashioned something similar.
All the best
Neil
Well that is good to know! Thank you Neil! At the time I was just seeking an answer on a question I had on Google +, I wasn't in that particular forum! All the best to you as well! Christa :)