There's clearly more that 2 results per domain appearing! Must have been some kind of temporary glitch, searching for the same keyword a moment ago the results were back to normal.
Monday, 30 March 2009
Strange Google Result!
I just searched in Google to see where my blog was ranking and this is a screenshot of the results!
There's clearly more that 2 results per domain appearing! Must have been some kind of temporary glitch, searching for the same keyword a moment ago the results were back to normal.
There's clearly more that 2 results per domain appearing! Must have been some kind of temporary glitch, searching for the same keyword a moment ago the results were back to normal.
Uploading Images to Google Local
In the past I have found it really frustrating when adding pictures to Google Local listings.
This morning I was uploading pictures for one of our Metafocus clients, Pemberton, caterers in Nottingham. Often, uploading pictures is a really slow and painful experience! Sometimes the images don’t upload properly, and on many occasions fail.
I have found that hosting the pictures online and then using the “Add a photo from the web” option works much more effectively. Rather than sitting through minutes watching the upload icon wondering what is happening, you just copy and paste the links into the box and click “Add Photo”. When uploading the pictures stored locally on my computer, I sometimes loose track of which images have been uploaded. The thumbnail images are not always displayed, which makes it easy to upload the same image twice without realising.
Using this method has also helped me to keep track of which photos have been used for the Google Local listing. Having the images hosted in a file on the server means they are easy to find and locate. This can save time in the future if any of the pictures need to be reused for other directory sites, blog posts or on the clients website.
This morning I was uploading pictures for one of our Metafocus clients, Pemberton, caterers in Nottingham. Often, uploading pictures is a really slow and painful experience! Sometimes the images don’t upload properly, and on many occasions fail.
I have found that hosting the pictures online and then using the “Add a photo from the web” option works much more effectively. Rather than sitting through minutes watching the upload icon wondering what is happening, you just copy and paste the links into the box and click “Add Photo”. When uploading the pictures stored locally on my computer, I sometimes loose track of which images have been uploaded. The thumbnail images are not always displayed, which makes it easy to upload the same image twice without realising.
Using this method has also helped me to keep track of which photos have been used for the Google Local listing. Having the images hosted in a file on the server means they are easy to find and locate. This can save time in the future if any of the pictures need to be reused for other directory sites, blog posts or on the clients website.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Differences between google.co.uk and google.com
Recently while working on some of our clients sites I have been noticing some really big differences between the rankings for some sites in google.co.uk and google.com
I first noticed the problem with a new website we created for Kim’s Chilled Couriers, a local haulage firm who offer refrigerated transport and frozen transport. Monitoring the keywords in google.co.uk was providing some very disappointing rankings. One day, using the search box in firefox I searched for “chilled couriers” and the site was ranked in the first result. I wasn’t signed in to my google account so the listing hadn’t been voted up using the search wiki, but the search box in firefox searches in google.com, not google.co.uk. It was clear, that despite our efforts, Google was not associating the site to the UK.
I thought this was quite surprising. Admittedly the site does have a .com url, but it is hosted on our server in the UK, the geo target had been set to UK in the Google Webmaster Tools and the site was listed in Google Local.
I asked on various forums to get help with the problem. Some of the suggestions that I received:
- Build more UK links
- Add UK to the title tags
- Add UK to the address on the page footer
- Add United Kingdom to the address on the Contact page
- Submitting the site to local directories
It was also suggested to change the html < html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> tag to this:
< html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-gb" lang="en-gb">
Over the last few months a combination of these factors have helped the site to rank much higher in google.co.uk. Here are the screen shots from google.co.uk & .com
co.uk:
.com:
As you can see the site is still ranking slightly higher in .com, but the rankings in co.uk have really improved recently – at one point they were about 80 positions out!.
This example clearly demonstrates that, given a choice, it is a much more sensible option to choose the local domain associated with the main target users. We were asked to use the .com address in this case as they had already used it in the past.
The Kim’s Chilled Couriers site is solely focused to people who are based and searching in the UK, I firmly believe that if we had been able to use the .co.uk address, it would have taken far less effort to improve the google.co.uk rankings.
I first noticed the problem with a new website we created for Kim’s Chilled Couriers, a local haulage firm who offer refrigerated transport and frozen transport. Monitoring the keywords in google.co.uk was providing some very disappointing rankings. One day, using the search box in firefox I searched for “chilled couriers” and the site was ranked in the first result. I wasn’t signed in to my google account so the listing hadn’t been voted up using the search wiki, but the search box in firefox searches in google.com, not google.co.uk. It was clear, that despite our efforts, Google was not associating the site to the UK.
I thought this was quite surprising. Admittedly the site does have a .com url, but it is hosted on our server in the UK, the geo target had been set to UK in the Google Webmaster Tools and the site was listed in Google Local.
I asked on various forums to get help with the problem. Some of the suggestions that I received:
- Build more UK links
- Add UK to the title tags
- Add UK to the address on the page footer
- Add United Kingdom to the address on the Contact page
- Submitting the site to local directories
It was also suggested to change the html < html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> tag to this:
< html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-gb" lang="en-gb">
Over the last few months a combination of these factors have helped the site to rank much higher in google.co.uk. Here are the screen shots from google.co.uk & .com
co.uk:
.com:
As you can see the site is still ranking slightly higher in .com, but the rankings in co.uk have really improved recently – at one point they were about 80 positions out!.
This example clearly demonstrates that, given a choice, it is a much more sensible option to choose the local domain associated with the main target users. We were asked to use the .com address in this case as they had already used it in the past.
The Kim’s Chilled Couriers site is solely focused to people who are based and searching in the UK, I firmly believe that if we had been able to use the .co.uk address, it would have taken far less effort to improve the google.co.uk rankings.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
New Website: Let’s Fish Spain
It’s been a while since I posted anything on here! I seem to have a collection of old, half started and incomplete blog posts.. It seems a bit late for a post on new years resolutions, so that one might get saved till next year!
I have recently built and designed a website for one of my friends who has moved to Spain and set up a business taking holiday makers on organised fishing trips around Southern Spain.
The site has been live for about a month and is begining to rank well for some keywords such as costa blanca fishing, and fishing on the costa blanca.
Here's a selection of pictures taken from the gallery page:
I have recently built and designed a website for one of my friends who has moved to Spain and set up a business taking holiday makers on organised fishing trips around Southern Spain.
The site has been live for about a month and is begining to rank well for some keywords such as costa blanca fishing, and fishing on the costa blanca.
Here's a selection of pictures taken from the gallery page:
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