domainguru
7th October 2006, 12:30 PM
I am working on developing thai websites, and goes without saying, targetting google placements ...
When Thai search at google.co.th, there is a toggle that translates as:
Search: (a) the web, or (b) pages (just) from Thailand
My question is how Google decides whether pages are "from" Thailand or not.
Obvious things that come to mind are:
(a) IP address of server
(b) language of page content
(c) language meta-tag i.e. <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="th">
(d) WHOIS info
(e) using a .th domain name
(f) Language of domain name (IDNs only)
Has anyone good *knowledge* of how Google decides whether a page is "from" a certain country?
If my pages aren't included in the "only pages from Thailand" index, its not a killer, as I don't think that is the default setting, but it would obviously be beneficial to have google think my pages are "from thailand".
Given that I don't plan to host my sites in Thailand in the near future, is there anything else I can do to persuade Google my pages are "from thailand"?
I found this in google's support group:
http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.support.general/browse_thread/thread/e74e6c7d521fd744/10f5795d06416752?lnk=st&q=%22pages+from+UK%22&rnum=3#10f5795d06416752
google' standard answer appears to be:
-------------
Google says:
--------------------------------------
4. I'd like my site to return for pages from a specific country.
While all sites in our index return for searches restricted to "the
web," we draw on a relevant subset of sites for each country restrict.
Our crawlers may identify the country for a site by factors such as the
physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address,
the WHOIS information for a domain, and its top-level domain.
That said, your site's top-level domain doesn't need to match the
country domain for which you'd like it to return. It's also important
to keep in mind that our crawlers don't index duplicate content, so
creating identical sites at several domains will likely not result in
their returning for many country restricts. If you do create duplicate
domains, we suggest using a robots.txt file to block our crawler from
accessing all but your preferred one.
--------------------------------------
What's the difference between "the
physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address" - how else would Google know "the physical location at which the site is hosted" apart from reading the IP address?
The only thing going for my domains is the WHOIS information - and I somehow don't think that is going to be enough, so I really need to get hosted in Thailand to ensure maximum exposure.
The other major question is whether the "page from Thailand" (or not) is going to affects SERPS for Thai terms? If it does, it means I simply *must* have my sites located physically in Thailand :(
When Thai search at google.co.th, there is a toggle that translates as:
Search: (a) the web, or (b) pages (just) from Thailand
My question is how Google decides whether pages are "from" Thailand or not.
Obvious things that come to mind are:
(a) IP address of server
(b) language of page content
(c) language meta-tag i.e. <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="th">
(d) WHOIS info
(e) using a .th domain name
(f) Language of domain name (IDNs only)
Has anyone good *knowledge* of how Google decides whether a page is "from" a certain country?
If my pages aren't included in the "only pages from Thailand" index, its not a killer, as I don't think that is the default setting, but it would obviously be beneficial to have google think my pages are "from thailand".
Given that I don't plan to host my sites in Thailand in the near future, is there anything else I can do to persuade Google my pages are "from thailand"?
I found this in google's support group:
http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.support.general/browse_thread/thread/e74e6c7d521fd744/10f5795d06416752?lnk=st&q=%22pages+from+UK%22&rnum=3#10f5795d06416752
google' standard answer appears to be:
-------------
Google says:
--------------------------------------
4. I'd like my site to return for pages from a specific country.
While all sites in our index return for searches restricted to "the
web," we draw on a relevant subset of sites for each country restrict.
Our crawlers may identify the country for a site by factors such as the
physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address,
the WHOIS information for a domain, and its top-level domain.
That said, your site's top-level domain doesn't need to match the
country domain for which you'd like it to return. It's also important
to keep in mind that our crawlers don't index duplicate content, so
creating identical sites at several domains will likely not result in
their returning for many country restricts. If you do create duplicate
domains, we suggest using a robots.txt file to block our crawler from
accessing all but your preferred one.
--------------------------------------
What's the difference between "the
physical location at which the site is hosted, the site's IP address" - how else would Google know "the physical location at which the site is hosted" apart from reading the IP address?
The only thing going for my domains is the WHOIS information - and I somehow don't think that is going to be enough, so I really need to get hosted in Thailand to ensure maximum exposure.
The other major question is whether the "page from Thailand" (or not) is going to affects SERPS for Thai terms? If it does, it means I simply *must* have my sites located physically in Thailand :(