Ranking higher in Google.com compared to google.co.uk for a uk site

Boy that's a new one. A penalty by pumping
you up in other google's. Maybe we have
"reverse" penalties now. Google will now
penalize you by ranking you higher in some
parts of the world.

Only google determines where your page "should rank."

What you mean is, you "think" it should rank better
on the UK google, rather than the google.com.

Are you logged in from the UK when searching?

If you are in the UK, and using google.com, the
results will indeed be skewed a tad differently
than by using the dot com.

Google makes determinations where sites should
rank via a number of outside factors. Like where
you are, what you are searching for, etc.

There has got to be a lot of crossover and interference
from two similar regions, like the UK and the US, especially
when one tries searching from two googles.

Maybe your site is just determined to be of more value
to those outside the UK. But there are so many intangibles,
it would be impossible to know. Not every site for the UK
uses a country extension. And not every .co.uk is geared
for just the UK. I know off the top of my head that
the official site for Great Britain's olympic team is a dot com.

Paul

I am ranking a clients site in Australia. They also have their main site that is global and based in the US. I am submitting the .com.au site to reputable Australian directories & working on getting valid, natural AU back links as well.

No I don't think this is a penalty.

I suggest that you login to Google Webmaster and set your target geographic region to UK. This will help Google realize that your site is targeted at the UK audience.

First of all Google tracks down your IP, so if you want to see the REAL search results from US (you being from the UK) you have to use an online service which will hide your UK ip and give you an US ip.

There are lots of these sites that you could be using (for example hidemyass.com).

After you've done this step and you get back the real results, only then you can make a real assessment of your true rankings and proceed accordingly.

Hope this helps.
Mike

have you submitted your site to google+ for business and google places. if not do it and all your problems should be soollved.

There is also the possibility that the term is far more competitive in the UK than it is in the US of course, adn that could be why you are ranking as such