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Get to the top on Google

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a presence in the US. However, most US webmasters use the .com gTLD and the Google.com interface has no “pages from the US” option. Elsewhere in the world, ranking well on a local instance is of great importance to webmasters. For example, research has shown that 3.5 times as many searchers in the UK use Google.co.uk as do Google.com and of these, 35–45% regularly check the “pages from the UK” radio button to narrow down their search. Ranking near the top of these narrowed local results is thus a pretty important mission for an online business. However, site owners in some countries (particularly the UK and Canada) have found getting the correct local instance presence somewhat challenging. I will use Google.co.uk as an example in this section and walk you through some of key steps required to rank well in the “pages from the UK” option.

Use or switch to a ccTLD domain name This may seem a little obvious. However, many webmasters are attracted to the international connotations that go along with yourdomain.com. The problem is that Google struggles to identify the country of origin of a .com TLD correctly. So moving to .co.uk, .org.uk, .ltd.uk, or even the obscure .me.uk might be of long-term benefit for those with a solely UK audience or customer base. While all of the other steps below should help (particularly the next one), there is simply no guarantee that the homepage of a .com domain will ever rank well on Google.co.uk as things currently stand. Starting without a .co.uk domain is like starting a chess game without your queen!

Put your site on a locally hosted server If you do insist on using a .com domain name, it is particularly important that your site is hosted in the UK. This is the only factor that I have


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