Dominating Google Hong Kong, but nothing on Google US -- why?

[DSGChina]

I've been doing off-page SEO for the last month and I'm dominating Google Hong Kong (google.com.hk) results, but can't get to the first page (even the 4th page) of Google US (google.com).

I am hosted in Hong Kong. But, my users are both Asia and US/Europe.

Questions:
1. How do I get to first page Google.com, and why would that be different from ranking in google.com.hk? Shouldn't the same tactics work across all Google search, except language specific searches?
2. If I host in the US, will that help?
3. If I subscribe to content distribution networks, will that help?
4. Dual hosting locations?
5. SEO secret sauce that addresses this specifically...

By the way, I did try to use US specific content in the articles/blog posts, etc. No dice, same result.

Have any of you had this problem before? Thanks.

[DSGChina]

Hello? Anyone have experience with this?

[heenal]

How do you check your ranking for USA?
Hope you type in htt://www.google.com/ncr and then check?

Heenal

[DSGChina]

I do the following:
1A. Use Market Samurai to check -- oh wait, that never works anymore
1. Sign out of Google
2. Check the default in the Chrome browser (for me it's Hong Kong cause of location)
3. Open a new browser, type in Google and check
4. Turn on the VPN to LA or San Fran, then go to google.com and check.

For some keywords, it's a difference of one or two pages (1st page vs. 3rd). For other keywords, it's a huge difference (1st position page 1 vs. not in the first 20 pages)

Just tried your URL and same result.

Funny thing is, just a brief review of the results for google.com, the PRs seem really high on average and looks like domain age might be a big factor. Associations and the like come up higher, even though they look terrible and have little traffic.

[askloz]

Originally Posted by DSGChina

I've been doing off-page SEO for the last month and I'm dominating Google Hong Kong (google.com.hk) results, but can't get to the first page (even the 4th page) of Google US (google.com).

I am hosted in Hong Kong. But, my users are both Asia and US/Europe.

K, its important to understand that google.com will predominately show .com's .net's. .gov's .edu's .orgs, .info's (rarely), .tv's...

but Asian extension sites. will ONLY show in google's asian servers..

since approx 80% of users that use google.com are english sites and english speaking people, it serves real no purpose to mix languages - it's about improving user experience, can you imagine how frustrated English users would be if all they got were asian sites coming up? they'd be searching for ages to find the content that they can actually understand.

There's more reasons that I can explain, but thats a brief overview.

Originally Posted by DSGChina

Questions:
1. How do I get to first page Google.com, and why would that be different from ranking in google.com.hk? Shouldn't the same tactics work across all Google search, except language specific searches?

I answered the first part of your question above.

You could also link from .com's .net's, etc. and ensure they are hosted in the US and or UK.

Originally Posted by DSGChina

2. If I host in the US, will that help?

MOST DEFINITELY!

Originally Posted by DSGChina

3. If I subscribe to content distribution networks, will that help?

Not really, you'd be putting more effort in when you should really get a .com domain, host in US and have references to your hong kong site via that site.

Originally Posted by DSGChina

4. Dual hosting locations?

thats the same as question 2, unless you can be more specific?

Originally Posted by DSGChina

5. SEO secret sauce that addresses this specifically...

just basic seo will do the trick if above is incorporated.

Originally Posted by DSGChina

By the way, I did try to use US specific content in the articles/blog posts, etc. No dice, same result.

thats cos your site is not an english site.

[DSGChina]

Askloz, thanks for your response.

Let me clarify: The site is in English -- every page of the almost 200,000 that are indexed by Google. We are also .com. Our competitors are also English, also hosted in Hong Kong and also .com.

linking on .com/.net is fine, this I can handle.

The backlinking articles, etc. all have US content in it, example: "Buying PCs in Texas".

Basically, what I take this to mean is: just keep building links and you'll come up in US searches as well.

Any other tips?

[askloz]

crikey.. dont anyone read the ENTIRE page...

its LOZ

lol

maybe I should ask the mods to change my username to LOZ... driving me nuts ppl calling me askloz when its clear in my sig...

----- dont worry, im not having a dig at you... ------------ its my b/day to day, so my only day to have a rant
================

ok... to your question

Originally Posted by DSGChina

Let me clarify: The site is in English -- every page of the almost 200,000 that are indexed by Google. We are also .com. Our competitors are also English, also hosted in Hong Kong and also .com.

Ok, that changes things - i figured your site was in Asian and had a extension hk...

how old is your site and how old is the other site

and where are the links coming from?

how is the content structured, does the other site have better site structure than yours?

how many links does it have to its internal pages, compared to yours?

how is the readability compared to the other site you are competing against?

how many links is your competitor getting that are hosted in USA?

where are you getting your links from compared to your competitor?

have you done reverse analysis on where they are getting links from and got the same type of links from the SAME site?

are they listed in any news feeds, are yours?

are you listed in yahoo directory, and Dmoz, are they as well?

list goes on and on.. but you get the general idea I hope?

Originally Posted by DSGChina

linking on .com/.net is fine, this I can handle.

The backlinking articles, etc. all have US content in it, example: "Buying PCs in Texas".

Basically, what I take this to mean is: just keep building links and you'll come up in US searches as well.

Any other tips?

yeh, in general yeh, how old are their links they got from those sites? how many links pointing to that page that the link is from?

etc, etc.

try different sources, dont just rely on article directories, over time they start to lose weight...

oh and btw, are you just using bio links to get backlinks?

if so, find sites that will have your link INSIDE the article itself and ensure the onpage seo for that article is bang on perfect, ensuring that it doesn't have many outbound links on it.

crikey, i should do a SEO course... i could go on for weeks about seo.

[DSGChina]

Originally Posted by askloz

crikey.. dont anyone read the ENTIRE page...

its LOZ

lol

maybe I should ask the mods to change my username to LOZ... driving me nuts ppl calling me askloz when its clear in my sig...

----- dont worry, im not having a dig at you... ------------ its my b/day to day, so my only day to have a rant
================

ok... to your question



Ok, that changes things - i figured your site was in Asian and had a extension hk...

how old is your site and how old is the other site

and where are the links coming from?

how is the content structured, does the other site have better site structure than yours?

how many links does it have to its internal pages, compared to yours?

how is the readability compared to the other site you are competing against?

how many links is your competitor getting that are hosted in USA?

where are you getting your links from compared to your competitor?

have you done reverse analysis on where they are getting links from and got the same type of links from the SAME site?

are they listed in any news feeds, are yours?

are you listed in yahoo directory, and Dmoz, are they as well?

list goes on and on.. but you get the general idea I hope?



yeh, in general yeh, how old are their links they got from those sites? how many links pointing to that page that the link is from?

etc, etc.

try different sources, dont just rely on article directories, over time they start to lose weight...

oh and btw, are you just using bio links to get backlinks?

if so, find sites that will have your link INSIDE the article itself and ensure the onpage seo for that article is bang on perfect, ensuring that it doesn't have many outbound links on it.

crikey, i should do a SEO course... i could go on for weeks about seo.

You could do a course LOZ... happy b'day. Hope you get cake or beer or whatever floats your boat.

I've got three huge competitors, but we have our advantages. I just need to hit #4 consistently while stealing a few #2s and #1s here and there.

The biggest challenge I face right now is the difference in rankings depending on google site. If I can fix that, I'm good. You have some good tips above. I just needed reassurance that this can be done without hosting in the US. My competition hosts in Hong Kong as well, so...

It's mind boggling that hosting location would even impact google position. Who do they have running the algorithms there anyhow?

[askloz]

Originally Posted by DSGChina

You could do a course LOZ... happy b'day. Hope you get cake or beer or whatever floats your boat.

Thanks

Originally Posted by DSGChina

I just needed reassurance that this can be done without hosting in the US. My competition hosts in Hong Kong as well, so...

well hey, if your competitor is ranking, then i cant see any reason why not..

i've not even mentioned stuff about page load times, how long the person is on the site, unique ip addresses, etc, list goes on and on.

Originally Posted by DSGChina

It's mind boggling that hosting location would even impact google position. Who do they have running the algorithms there anyhow?

not really my friend, it makes perfect sense.

who runs the algo's? a bunch of muppets apparently, i hate their new algo... granted, i've gone up in rankings, but i hate it when im personally trying to search for something for my own pleasure.

[DSGChina]

Yes, many, many things to list. I know we can do better on some of the inner pages on-page SEO, but the URL structure is good. Waiting until the new site is up before we do tuning. Same with speed.

Love the muppet reference. Which muppet(s)? I'm nominating Gonzo and whoever that stupid drummer was.

Funny thing is, Panda/Farmer helped us too. But search quality in general is a real mish-mash. I can't go to Google for news now, that's strictly iPad territory.

[askloz]

muppet isnt in reference to sesame street

Muppet = Donk, Idiot, stupid.

yeh, i hate it, one of my sites i cant even get the TDL to rank, ONLY its inner pages will rank... freak'n stupid

[zoobie]

I have several sites rank Good in Google.com. Including those one in Hong Kong. You just have to get links from apparently US sites.

[bermuda]

Originally Posted by DSGChina

I've been doing off-page SEO for the last month and I'm dominating Google Hong Kong (google.com.hk) results, but can't get to the first page (even the 4th page) of Google US (google.com).

I am hosted in Hong Kong. But, my users are both Asia and US/Europe.

Questions:
1. How do I get to first page Google.com, and why would that be different from ranking in google.com.hk? Shouldn't the same tactics work across all Google search, except language specific searches?
2. If I host in the US, will that help?
3. If I subscribe to content distribution networks, will that help?
4. Dual hosting locations?
5. SEO secret sauce that addresses this specifically...

By the way, I did try to use US specific content in the articles/blog posts, etc. No dice, same result.

Have any of you had this problem before? Thanks.

Please note that targeting the Google.com rankings may require more time and one month of work may seem insufficient in terms of SEO tasks nowadays. Your website seems to be moving in the right direction.

You mentioned about using a US based hosting account and its affects on your Google.com ranks, well do it and that move is recommended.

By getting links from US hosted websites, your ranks would gradually get improved because at present IP addresses of the links do count.

[DSGChina]

Just another difference between UKers and USAers... you guys use in daily conversation. For us, it's a movie (actually I think they did two or three). But isn't the second interpretation more insulting? I mean, when you can go to the backrub station in between "brilliant" lines of code and:
a. ignore your core product that produces 95% of your revenue (search)
b. dream up some half arsed (heh heh) way to try and make any of your products social
c. try to convince your cubicle mate NOT to jump to Facebook

That's a busy day, don't you think?