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Is there a geographical bias in web searching?

by LiamElliott
7 replies
There are lots of domain extensions becoming popular that were originally intended as country codes. I am from canada and have noticed that while searching for information, I gravitate towards .ca domain names wherever available. It's a suconscious choice, possibly because the likelihood of the site having higher quality information is greater, or at least perceived that way.

What do you think?
#bias #geographical #searching #web
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by LiamElliott View Post

    What do you think?
    I think you're probably right.

    But in one way, it doesn't matter too much what anyone thinks, because (at least with regard to Google searches) the answers to these questions are among the information about which Google's completely open, and factual information is readily available.

    Searches made from "local Google"/"default Google" sites, such as google.ca in Canada, and google.co.uk in the UK, give priority listings (to whatever extent) to sites registered on their own national domain listings (e.g. .ca for Canada and .co.uk for the UK).

    Sites hosted in the appropriate country also get "extra credit" for ranking purposes (as Google's Matt Cutts has explained on a little video linked to in several other threads here).

    As Google has gone to great lengths to clarify, all top-level domains are the same for ranking/SEO purposes (even though some people, apparently, still don't believe it, because they're convinced that their own experience suggests otherwise). This includes all the "normal extensions" like .com/.net/,org/.info and so on, but it also includes three "national extensions" which are widely used for sites intended for international rankings, and those are ".co" (originally Colombia), ".me" (originally Montenegro) and ".tv" (originally Tuvalu). For ranking purposes, these are all effectively the same as a .com - and Google has said so, repeatedly, in black and white (and on video!).

    It may well be that in some countries, people searching may give preference in their own selection from the SERP's to clicking on "local-looking ones" as well, of course. Who knows to what extent that matters, overall, though? My impression is that in the UK, most people won't actually prefer a .co.uk to a .com, because everyone who searches for sites online is used to ".com", now.

    But in reality, someone wanting to rank well, specifically for sites in Canada, would be well advised to use a .ca extension and to have their site hosted in Canada, simply "for SEO reasons" anyway.

    The moderators might feel that this thread would be better here: Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      On a slight tangent...

      One of the arguments against so-called 'duplicate content' is the idea that Google will only show one copy of an article or other content that appears on multiple sites. They (mistakenly, IMO) assume that the single copy shown in a serp will always be the same copy, and that all other instances of that content will be ignored or buried deep in the sandbox.

      This is probably true for any single search.

      It does not mean that the same copy will be shown for every other search.

      According to the guidebook for Google's human site raters, the ones whose input guides the Panda algorithm updates, they are to give preference to content from the same country as the searcher.

      Let's say I have an article posted on my blog in the USA, and syndicated to blogs in Canada and the UK. To keep things simple, let's also say that the SEO is the same for each copy.

      For any given search query, I'm likely to see the copy on my US site. A searcher from Canada would see the one on the Canadian site, and one from the UK would see the copy hosted in the UK.

      A side effect would be that when searching you are more likely to see a number of country-specific urls, and therefore familiarity would make for a higher comfort level. This may be particularly so for eCommerce or geographical searches.

      [This phenomena may cast another vote in favor of widespread syndication, rather than against it.]
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  • Profile picture of the author pbdollars
    Yes, there is. In HTML meta tags there is countries, region and city options to optimize local business irrespective of the extension of the domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author MN Warrior
    It would only make sense.

    I just did a search for 'Dry Cleaner' under the Duck Duck Go search engine (they claim to not have biases like Google does such as web history) and results seem to be from all over the place.
    Signature

    Pertaining to blogging, jobs, and education online.

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    • Profile picture of the author LiamElliott
      Thanks for the input. When I mentioned geographical bias, I meant in the psychology of the person browsing. Are they more likely to gravitate towards local search results subconsciously?
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by LiamElliott View Post

        Thanks for the input. When I mentioned geographical bias, I meant in the psychology of the person browsing. Are they more likely to gravitate towards local search results subconsciously?
        I had a longer response typed out, but a server timeout killed it.

        The short version is "I think so - sometimes."

        I think it depends on what that someone is searching for. In looking for, say, reviews for a restaurant or hotel in a foreign country, I might prefer reviews from people in my own country simply because shared geography = shared cultural biases. Obviously, that's not necessarily so, but the impression is there.

        Another area might be ecommerce. One might be predisposed to favoring local sites because of the perception that there will be fewer potential problems with deliveries, returns, refunds, import-related taxes, etc.

        Other things, like digital downloads, are probably less influenced by geography.
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      • Profile picture of the author rprost
        Originally Posted by LiamElliott View Post

        Thanks for the input. When I mentioned geographical bias, I meant in the psychology of the person browsing. Are they more likely to gravitate towards local search results subconsciously?

        I do and think that most people who live Canada would do the same. We all have years of experience of visiting websites trying to order something online only to be told that the product is not available in your country. Picking the .ca site eliminates this problem.
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