Page one of Google - but which Google?

Congratulations! Your SEO (search engine optimisation) company has just phoned to say they got you to page one of Google. So off you go to google.com and enter in the keyword phrase they were targeting.

You're nowhere to be seen. What gives?

Desperately you scan down the page, and click the next button. After several pages you find your site, right at the bottom of page 4 (i.e. nowhere worth being). Angry, you pick up the phone and chew the ear off your SEO guy.

As you start to calm down, the SEO guy gets his chance to get a word in edgewise, and explains you're on page one of google dot co dot uk - not google dot com.

Which Google?

Most of us automatically think of google.com when we think of Google, and didn't even know that almost every country on Earth has its own local version. Yet Google is very keen to deliver search relevancy, and its local versions help achieve that.

Unfortunately, they haven't done such a good job of getting the word out. Yet google.co.uk is a far better search engine if you're looking for something based here in the UK. It even gives you the option to exclude non UK sites from its results.

I think it's a great idea, and thoroughly recommend using the local version of Google. Especially when you're searching for local goods and services.

The fly in the ointment is found when the very people who should be using the local version of Google aren't doing so. Not because they don't want to, but because they don't even know it exists. This creates a problem in the world of SEO. It means UK businesses still need to get to page one of google.com, and that's much harder to achieve. It costs more money to get there, and more money to stay there.

If you're using google.com, but tend to use the web for local stuff, switch to google.co.uk. You'll find it's far more useful.