After the 3rd recording attempt, we’ve sorted out our recording problems, and we’re back with a backlog-clearing, hour long marathon!
Loads of links below, first however, we need to post the information from Steve Marshall regarding location of servers:
Search Engines and Geographical Location of Servers
On episode 14, you were asked about search engines and the geographical location of your servers. I asked an SEO about this, and he had the following to say:
Google uses the IP of your server, initially, to determine your target audience. So an IP in the UK will rank more favourably in Google.co.uk than google.com for searches. Further to this, the users use of the ‘pages from cc’ could flush your rank from SERPs if the IP is outside the selected cc. Current suggestion is somewhere between 10% to 18% of searches use country searches.
Using a ccTLD will balance out or over-ride a non-agreeing IP geolocation but the geolocation of the IP and the ccTLD are of similar influence so a ccTLD over a geolocated IP should not be relied on alone.
You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to specify a target market, again improving your ranking in that market and helping inclusion on ‘pages from cc’ searches.
Furthermore, Google’s perception of markets of inbound links can also affect this: if you have lots of inbounds from the UK, you’re perceived to be more apt to the UK market than someone with lots of inbounds from, say, Germany.
Oh, and if you correctly identify your audience—if you use Adsense—that can also make a difference.
Hope that helps!
(Sorry it took so long to post Steve, and thanks for the information!)