Some Google questions

[alexd]

Hi again Guys and Gals,

I am living and working in Greece, and was recently asked by a customer about the way that Google works when someone does a search for words in Greek, with regards to it's local search engine, in this case Google.gr

When you go to the Greek Google, you have three choices of how you want to search.
1) The normal, classic way of searching. Type in your word and search.
2) Do a search, but through all pages that are "Greek Pages"
3) Do a search, but through all pages that "come" from Greece.

The third option is the one I am wondering about. I have done searches for various terms, and when using the 3rd option, vitrually 99% of all results are for websites with domains ending in .gr ( the Greek extension ).

Now, I was wondering what happens to all the pages that "come" from Greece but that do not have the .gr extension. Are these pages not searched for results ?? When doing a search, the results for options 1 and 2 are almost identicle, yet when doing a search for the 3rd option, the results vary a lot.

I am just wondering what and if any impact this might have on IDNs. In my case, I have regged quite a few Greek IDNs in either .com or .net. However, if in this case, Google only shows results for sites that "come" from Greece, I am a little worried incase my IDNs will somehow be punished, and not show up in these types of results.

Has anyone had any similiar experience with other local Google sites ?? Do any others have this type of search option, and if so, are there any huge differeneces in the results that are listed ???

Look forward to any comments.


Alex

[mulligan]

I would say that it would depend on what the searchers are looking for.
If they are looking for 'books' in Greek and you own books.com/.net/.gr in Greek then with a little SEO (Which I know nothing about!) should get you on the front page of results.

I dont know hw popular it is for people to go into the advanced search feature and specify the language/country etc but I would say not very..

If searching in Greek I would expect to find Greek results regardless of where they come from or the extension used for the domain name.

[Edwin]

I believe that Google pays attention to the following when determining where a site is "from":-

A) The domain extension e.g. .gr, .es etc.
B) The IP address of the site

There has been a lot of debate on webmaster discussion groups about which of A) or B) has priority/more weight but certainly it seems if you have a local CCTLD domain, you can get away in many cases with hosting "outside" the country the site is "in"...

[Rubber Duck]

Google will have no problems at all determining where the site is from irrespective of the extension. I would suggest that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

Google will have no problems at all determining where the site is from irrespective of the extension. I would suggest that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

That's simply not true.

If you have a site "from" Greece but you host it in the US (to take advantage of much cheaper hosting rates) and on a .com domain, Google will have no idea that it's from Greece.

It may know that it's IN Greek, but that's a separate discussion as Google processes language matches and location matches differently.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by Edwin

That's simply not true.

If you have a site "from" Greece but you host it in the US (to take advantage of much cheaper hosting rates) and on a .com domain, Google will have no idea that it's from Greece.

It may know that it's IN Greek, but that's a separate discussion as Google processes language matches and location matches differently.

Perhaps, I didn't express that very well. My opinion was that it was stating that you were selecting sites located in Greece. Google can detect whether the site is hosted in Greece, and that is what I think you are getting in response to selecting that option.

[alexd]

Thanks for the replies Guys.

Are there any other local Googles, such as Google.co.jp that offer or carry out this type of search facility.

I mean, I have a few Japanese IDNs that I am looking to develope, but was wondering if someone in Japan does a search for "Sites from Japan" ( if there is such an option with the Japanese Google ), then would my site have any chance of being listed ??

I do know quite a bit about SEO, and have never had much a problem with my sites, but was just wondering if this search option from Google might hurt my chances of my sites being listed.

I mean, I am in Greece, with a Japanese IDN.com and have hosting in either the US or UK. I have no connection with Japan at all, apart from the domain name. Will this affect how Google percieves my site ??

Do any of the major search engines have this type of "local" search option, that limits the results that they show ??


Thanks again for the replies so far - it's been an interesting read.

Alex