Moving Aussie site to USA server

[johncook]

I'm considering moving one of my Australian websites to a USA server but a big factor is on whether this will affect rankings in the Australian search engines. Does anyone know if the geographical location of the server affects the search engine ranking (particularly when the Australian search engine lets you select Australia or Overseas when searching)?

[Kal]

Hi John

I wouldn't worry about it. My Aussie and New Zealand sites are hosted in the U.S. Your site's ranking will be based on a wide combination of factors including relevancy, keyword weighting and other site-specific factors within your control. For geographical qualifying, I believe the engines only segregate sites based on domain extension (i.e. .com.au etc) rather than IP address. Except for serving up ads to searchers, when the searcher's own IP address can determine what country they are from and therefore what ads they are served up.

Hope this helps! :cheers:

[Alan Perkins]

Welcome to the forums johncook :hi:

It can make a difference if you don't have an Australian domain name.

e.g. in the UK, it seems that google.co.uk's "UK only" search returns pages that are

a) hosted in the UK (GeoIP determined), and/or
b) have a .co.uk domain name

Other factors, such as Content-Language or domain registrant location, do not appear to be taken into account.

Upshot: if your domain name isn't .com.au, you may miss out on Aussie-only traffic from google.com.au

As an example, I searched for "overture partner scumware" (knowing Kal had written an article on it). Kal's article ranked #1 on google.com and google.com.au with "the web" selected. However, it didn't rank at all on google.com.au with "pages from Australia" selected. If Kal hosted her site in Australia it would have been found...

google.com.au "the web" search (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=overture+partner+scumware&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=)
google.com.au "pages from Australia" search (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=overture+partner+scumware&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU)

[Dan0]

Alan:

I might be wrong, but I think they attempt a geo lookup based on the primary name server for the domain, not the web server.

[cline]

See this thread: http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7698 .

My experience suggests that it matters where the site is hosted.

[Dan0]

I read that thread about your client whose site is hosted in Russia. Is the primary name server for their domain also located in Russia?

[cline]

Yes, the nameserver is in Russia.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Dan0
I might be wrong, but I think they attempt a geo lookup based on the primary name server for the domain, not the web server.Could be! That would certainly help in load-balancing situations, when hosts are everywhere ...

[Dan0]

This came up recently with a Q&A area I do on WebProNews. The question was about a .com domain, hosted in Australia, and why it didn't show up in Google.com.au - turned out that their name server's IP was showing up as a U.S. address.

I was also able to find a site hosted in the U.S. where the name server was in Australia, that was appearing in Google Australia.

Based on that, I have "guessed" that Google is using the name server IP (which they would likely have cached).

[Kal]

Interesting! Thanks for that info. I didn't think about regional content hosted on generic .com addresses. Something else to consider when purchasing domains and choosing web hosts.

<added>Anyone else find it amusing that Overture is sponsoring those search pages via AdWords? :p </added>

[JustTrying]

I am hosting one of my client's sites in Russia, and waiting to see what will happen.

By the end of next month I should tell what implications (if any) there may be. When I know more I will of course share.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Dan0
This came up recently with a Q&A area I do on WebProNews. The question was about a .com domain, hosted in Australia, and why it didn't show up in Google.com.au - turned out that their name server's IP was showing up as a U.S. address.

I was also able to find a site hosted in the U.S. where the name server was in Australia, that was appearing in Google Australia.This is probably how a lookup based on IP address works, Dan (I don't know for sure).

If you have a site hosted in Australia, but want to move hosting to America AND keep the same IP address (which is assigned to an Australian entity) then you probably have to keep your name server in Australia and hence your server is, as far as an IP lookup is concerned, hosted in Australia.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Kal
Anyone else find it amusing that Overture is sponsoring those search pages via AdWords? :pI wrote that in my original post, but edited it out when I realised that the ad isn't Overture, but an Overture affiliate! Now how deceptive is that?

[robwatts]

I wrote that in my original post, but edited it out when I realised that the ad isn't Overture, but an Overture affiliate! Now how deceptive is that?

Alan, Is that ad still there?

As you may well know, Adwords TOS state that affiliate ads must be clearly indentifiable. I'd be interested to see how quickly they catch these things.

[Alan Perkins]

See for yourself (http://www.google.com/search?q=overture). Note: since yesterday, Andrew Goodman (page-zero) has also started advertising on the term...

[robwatts]

So I see.

Although its worth noting that Andrew Goodmans ad goes to his own domain and stays there, whereas the other advert is an out and out redirect.

Both examples are different in the sense that one is using the word Overture to attract visits from people looking for Overture, and is then trying to convince the person of the value of their own product, whereas the other is simply pushing people to Overture to try and earn a commission from any sign up.

Andrew goodmans ad legitimacy is dependant upon whether Overture is a trademarked or registered brand, whereas the other ad is clearly outside of the adword tos simply because it doesnt mention its affiliate relationship.

[wokkie]

Originally posted by Alan Perkins
This is probably how a lookup based on IP address works, Dan (I don't know for sure).

If you have a site hosted in Australia, but want to move hosting to America AND keep the same IP address (which is assigned to an Australian entity) then you probably have to keep your name server in Australia and hence your server is, as far as an IP lookup is concerned, hosted in Australia.

I am not sure that this is correct. I think it is the web server's IP, rather than primary DNS' IP which is the critical factor. Our DNS is UK based, but we have definitely lost traffic on dot coms hosted in the US. Some of them are hidden in UK results, some lose page rank and disappear down the listings.

Don't host a TLD for a non-US site in the US, wherever your DNS is based.

cheers

Bob

[wokkie]

Originally posted by Kal
Hi John

I wouldn't worry about it. My Aussie and New Zealand sites are hosted in the U.S. Your site's ranking will be based on a wide combination of factors including relevancy, keyword weighting and other site-specific factors within your control. For geographical qualifying, I believe the engines only segregate sites based on domain extension (i.e. .com.au etc) rather than IP address. Except for serving up ads to searchers, when the searcher's own IP address can determine what country they are from and therefore what ads they are served up.

Hope this helps! :cheers:

Kal

sorry, but this is bad and incorrect advice. You should delete this note or else risk misleading people gravely.

cheers

Bob

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by wokkie
I think it is the web server's IP, rather than primary DNS' IP which is the critical factor.I think that's what I'm saying, too. :)

It's all got a bit confused by this DNS issue, so I'll go back to the very beginning.

A simple way of determining geographic location is to look at the IP address. There are tables that convert IP address ranges into countries (and down and down, onto the postcode of the entity responsible for the IP). This is not always going to be totally accurate of course, e.g. I'm in the UK but could easily appear to be in the US by going through a proxy or simply by using a US-based ISP.

As far as Web sites are concerned, their domain name needs to map to an IP address too. This is where DNS comes in. The IP address they map to will (using the simple reverse lookup I described above) reveal the country they are apparently based in.

However (and this is where I'm guessing, but it's a reasonably well educated guess :)) one way of hosting your domain name in a country which DOESN'T map to the IP address would be to use a primary nameserver based in a country that DOES map to the IP address. I am guessing that if your IP address is assigned to Australia, and you want to host in America on that IP, that you CANNOT have your primary nameserver in America - it must be in Australia - or at least it's far simpler that way. This would explain Dan's observation and my original assertion.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by wokkie
sorry, but this is bad and incorrect advice. You should delete this note or else risk misleading people gravely.We appreciate your concern.

However, Kal's opinions are her own and expressed freely and are only opinions. People should read the thread as a whole and form their own opinion. IMO it's far worse if posters start editing their posts after the event as then the thread won't hang together and later posts can be taken out of context or just lose their meaning entirely.

[wokkie]

Originally posted by Alan Perkins
I think that's what I'm saying, too. :)

However (and this is where I'm guessing, but it's a reasonably well educated guess :)) one way of hosting your domain name in a country which DOESN'T map to the IP address would be to use a primary nameserver based in a country that DOES map to the IP address. I am guessing that if your IP address is assigned to Australia, and you want to host in America on that IP, that you CANNOT have your primary nameserver in America - it must be in Australia - or at least it's far simpler that way. This would explain Dan's observation and my original assertion.

Alan, with respect, you would be better to learn something about this subject before posting on it. This is rubbish.


cheers

Bob

[Alan Perkins]

I think it is the web server's IP, rather than primary DNS' IP which is the critical factor. Our DNS is UK based, but we have definitely lost traffic on dot coms hosted in the US. Some of them are hidden in UK results, some lose page rank and disappear down the listings.Can you explain for certain why you observe these results? Are you sure it's because they are hosted in the US? Doesn't the fact that they are in the UK results at all indicate that the DNS may have a role to play?

[robwatts]

Alan, with respect, you would be better to learn something about this subject before posting on it. This is rubbish.

Hey wokkie, I really don't think it adds anything to a discussion to tell people that they are talking rubbish.

If you have a contrary view or opinion, or better still could give a cast iron clarification of the issue, then that would be a whole let more helpful.

I'm not saying that you aren't entitled to your opinion, or that you can't tell people that you disagree with them, but please, try to do so in a manner that isn't so provacative. :)

[wokkie]

Originally posted by Alan Perkins
Can you explain for certain why you observe these results? Are you sure it's because they are hosted in the US? Doesn't the fact that they are in the UK results at all indicate that the DNS may have a role to play?

I am not 100% certain of anything here. But I am referring to sites with Top Level domain names which were previously hosted in the UK and were then moved to the US when we took advantage of the more mature market conditions, while DNS servers remained in the UK.

Some fell out of the UK results altogether, some just dropped rank. Those that remained in the listings were mainly those which also had .co.uk domain names aliased to the main name, and had one or two links to the .co.uk name.

I should mention though, that while our primary DNS is hosted in the UK, our secondary is hosted in the US in some cases. I am not sure if this is also of influence.

But for my own purposes the evidence is already good enough that hosting TLD's in the US is a bad idea unless you are not interested in the local market.

cheers

Bob

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by robwatts
Hey wokkie, I really don't think it adds anything to a discussion to tell people that they are talking rubbish.It was before noon and today is April 1. :)

Reading back through the thread, Wokkie, you'll see that my first post was in total agreement with your position, and that first post was based on my experience. I made that post because I, too, disagreed with what Kal said. Dan0 then postedOriginally posted by Dan0
I was also able to find a site hosted in the U.S. where the name server was in Australia, that was appearing in Google Australia.
That doesn't match my own experience but I'm always happy to learn from someone else's. Dan0 does a lot of testing and research and I trust that. I think between your situation and Dan0's we may learn something.

You have a .com hosted in the US with a UK primary nameserver that appears in UK search results (albeit not very prominently). I'd be interested in knowing what IP address the site was on, or at least whether you would use ARIN or RIPE to look it up...

[Dan0]

I would not recommend hosting outside of the country you're in, if you're after the local markets.

You can search for "search engine optimization" on Google.com.au, and find a U.S. firm with a .com domain listed at #9. They're hosted 100% in Australia.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Dan0
You can search for "search engine optimization" on Google.com.au, and find a U.S. firm with a .com domain listed at #9. They're hosted 100% in Australia.I see

www.cyberfieds.com
IP address 216.218.210.207

That's an ARIN administered address, which means it should lie within one of these countries (http://www.arin.net/library/internet_info/ARINcountries.htm), i.e. not Australia. However, a bit of further digging shows:Search results for: 216.218.210.207

Hurricane Electric HURRICANE-1 (NET-216-218-128-0-1)
216.218.128.0 - 216.218.255.255
Server 101 HURRICANE-CE0029-181 (NET-216-218-210-192-1)
216.218.210.192 - 216.218.210.255

...

Search results for: ! NET-216-218-210-192-1


OrgName: Server 101
OrgID: SERVER-1
Address: 20 Melinda Street
Address: Kenmore, QLD 4069
City:
StateProv:
PostalCode:
Country: AU

NetRange: 216.218.210.192 - 216.218.210.255
CIDR: 216.218.210.192/26
NetName: HURRICANE-CE0029-181
NetHandle: NET-216-218-210-192-1
Parent: NET-216-218-128-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2001-09-05
Updated: 2001-09-05

TechHandle: MH407-ARIN
TechName: Herbaut, Martial
I'm thinking the fields I've made bold have a lot to do with why they show up on Australian searches...

One more check. Domain registrant:
WHOIS Record for

cyberfieds.com Back-order this name



Registrant:
CYBERFIEDS Ad Works (CYBERFIEDS3-DOM)
249 Allens Way
Kittrell
NC,27544
US

Domain Name: CYBERFIEDS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Hill, Karen
CYBERFIEDS
249 Allens Way
Kittrell, NC 27544
US
Technical Contact:
Hill, Karen
The Handmade Homemade Toy Shop
25 Groves Hall Ct.
Columbia, SC 29212
US

Record expires on 03-Jul-2003.
Record created on 02-Jul-1997.
Database last updated on 1-Apr-2003 08:55:06 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.GIGA-SJ-001.NET 216.218.210.201
NS2.GIGA-SJ-001.NET 216.218.210.202So the registrant is in the US.

However, the primary name server is in the same IP address range I posted above, so is also reassigned to Australia even though it is administered by Arin...

(Note: I removed the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of all the lookups.)

[Dan0]

Alan:

I just used http://www.where-is.info to do the geo lookups on this one. It shows AU as the country on those addresses.

What I'm looking for to blow my theory out of the water is a .com site with a DNS server which is clearly located outside Australia showing up in Google AU, or a comparable situation with any of the country-specific versions.

Naturally, this condition would have to hold up through an update or two before we'd know that the DNS server's location wasn't a recent change.

[Kal]

Originally posted by wokkie
Kal
sorry, but this is bad and incorrect advice. You should delete this note or else risk misleading people gravely.

cheers
Bob With all due respect Bob and as Alan so kindly pointed out, that was my opinion only, not stated as fact. That's why I used the term "I believe". It is quite clear from subsequent posts that my opinion was mistaken. Unlike some people, I don't go around pronouncing my word as Gospel and others as "rubbish" :rolleyes:.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Dan0
What I'm looking for to blow my theory out of the water is a .com site with a DNS server which is clearly located outside Australia showing up in Google AU, or a comparable situation with any of the country-specific versions.Agreed, that would do it.

How about this: any site showing up in more than one Google regional index?

Since google.com doesn't show up in a search for "google" on google.com.au (Aussie sites only), I think that their regional filters are very strict. They don't include sites outside the region that may be of interest to people inside the region. They only include sites inside the region.

The question is whether you can appear to be hosted inside the region, while actually being hosted outside the region. Wokkie's experience suggests that you can, but I think you might need quite an unusual DNS setup.

[advice]

Hi,

Another fascinating thread.

What a great forum this is!

I was wondering how do you work out the IP address of a website.

And then how did you get those detailed stats.

I went to where-is.info and got a report saying AU about the IP address mentioned previously but not all the other info.

Thanks and regards,

Glenn

[Aussies-Online]

Well, this is all very interesting.

Let me first say that Aussies-Online is hosted in the US.

My understanding of all this has always been that to be listed in the Australian Search Engines, you need the extension .au

When I started Aussies-Online in 1999, this was not an issue as there was no such thing as an Australian Search Engine. They only started to appear towards the end of 1999.

My US host has told me that it should not be a problem for him to host an Australian site with the extension .au

If the Search Engines are taking notice of the IP address, I woud not know anything about that. All I can say is that they would be quite wrong in doing so. I did not go to the US for the fun of it. The cost of data serve is murder in Australia and I could not possibly afford to host Aussies-Online in Australia.

I remember making a submission to Yahoo and one of the question was "In what country is your server" . That is a far better way of doing it as you can explain that you have an Australian site hosted in the US.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by advice
I was wondering how do you work out the IP address of a website.There are lots of ways of doing this. One way is to run

ping -a www.domain.com

in a DOS promptAnd then how did you get those detailed stats.www.arin.netOriginally posted by Aussies-Online
My understanding of all this has always been that to be listed in the Australian Search Engines, you need the extension .auNope, other factors COULD be taken into account. Google seems to take notice of hosting location.

I notice you are not found in local searches by google.com.au - this is because you have a .com hosted in the USA. If you had a .com.au OR were hosted in Australia you'd (probably :D) be listed.

[Dan0]

How about this: any site showing up in more than one Google regional index?
That would certainly confuse me, at the very least.:p

I've only seen two cases so far:
1. The domain name is associated with the country (anything.co.[b]uk[b] is considered a UK site). It can be hosted anywhere.
2. Name server (DNS) IP address maps back to a network in that country. It can be hosted anywhere, and presumably can have any top level domain.

I wonder how many sites are being set up to target a regional index, even though they're not in the region. I would hope it's not too many. I hope this thread inspires folks to get local where they are, not to try and colonize another country's Google index. :D

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Dan0
Name server (DNS) IP address maps back to a network in that country. It can be hosted anywhere, and presumably can have any top level domain.Have you got a concrete example where the primary name server's IP and a site's IP map to different countries? And where the site as a result turns up in local searches for the country which the primary name server maps to?

[Aussies-Online]

Yes I do realise that Aussies-Online is not listed in Google Australia.

I just wonder how many Australians would use Google Australia. It is not that easy to find. It is not on their toolbar. It is not on their homepage. You actually need to go to 'language tools' or you need to type the address google.com.au

All too much trouble for the average surfer I reckon. We need to keep in mind that your average surfer does not have a clue about all those technicalities. He expect to find what he is looking for by typing it in the first search box presented to him.

For my part, I practically never use the Australian Search in a search engine. I simply don't even think about it. I have the Google toolbar on my browser and I do all my searches from there.

Now, I also have a question. If I had .com.au, would that not restrict me from promoting Aussies-Online on some US or other country's search engines?

Regional is good. But surely, universal must be better.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Aussies-Online
Now, I also have a question. If I had .com.au, would that not restrict me from promoting Aussies-Online on some US or other country's search engines?No, not if they were promoting international sites.Regional is good. But surely, universal must be better. It depends where your market is. If you let regional suffer for the sake of universal, and your market is mostly regional, that's not a great idea.

[Aussies-Online]

If I kept Aussies-Online.com

And decided to make a mirror site
Aussies-Online.com.au

Would that be regarded as spamming?

[Dan0]

Originally posted by Alan Perkins
Have you got a concrete example where the primary name server's IP and a site's IP map to different countries? And where the site as a result turns up in local searches for the country which the primary name server maps to?
I was trying to figure out why an Australian site wasn't showing up, and this came up while I was researching that. I don't have notes on it, but I'll try to find a few of them later.

Even then, it will take a couple updates to know for sure. The sites that are hosted in US with DNS in Australia may have just moved their hosting, and they may drop out of the regional index in a subsequent update.

As I said, I recommend doing everything in the country (DNS and hosting) if you want to be sure that you'll show up in the regional index.

Can anyone show me an example where they think their non-US domain is 'penalized' on Google.com? I have a hard time accepting the assumption that this is the case. When I try "search engine positioning" on Google.com and Google.co.uk, the #1 site from the UK results appears at #12 on Google.com - this hardly looks like a penalty to me. It looks more like competition.

[excell]

"I just wonder how many Australians would use Google Australia"

About all australians now use google.com.au as google flicks them on up there. :)

They really have to be a little clued in not to use the google.au now.

As far as I know a .com or a .com.au hosted in the USA hasn't got a problem in showing in .AU searches.. I think that this is due to it"s regional listings in both yahoo & dmoz.. if it is not listed in there.. and is not.au then I don't know how it will find it's way home :)

[advice]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by advice
I was wondering how do you work out the IP address of a website.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are lots of ways of doing this. One way is to run

ping -a www.domain.com

in a DOS prompt
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And then how did you get those detailed stats.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.arin.net

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks heaps Alan for this info.

A whole new world has just opened.

Regards,

Glenn

[advice]

"I just wonder how many Australians would use Google Australia"

About all australians now use google.com.au as google flicks them on up there.

They really have to be a little clued in not to use the google.au now.

_____________________

Hi Excell,

I thought they were seperate searches.

google.com gives one set of results and google .com .au another

Maybe I am missing something here.

Regards

Glenn

[advice]

Hi,

Exploring the world of adwords.

I looked at lord of the rings and included all the different keywords

adwords.google.com and adwords.google.com.au give different results, which I guess is not surprising.

Some interesting results

there were more searches for star wars and harry potter in google.com.au than google.com

mp3 was the same for both .com.au and .com

I am not sure why this is. I would have thought there would be less searches for these terms in google.com.au compared to google.com or maybe there is not much difference between the two.

Regards,

Glenn

[Aussies-Online]

Originally posted by excell

About all australians now use google.com.au as google flicks them on up there. :)


Would you please elaborate on this?
I am using Google 7 days a week and I have never been redirected to Google Australia.

[Kal]

Originally posted by advice
Hi Excell,

I thought they were seperate searches.

google.com gives one set of results and google .com .au another

Maybe I am missing something here.

Regards

Glenn What Excell means is that persons located in Australia (on most ISP's) will be redirected to Google.com.au if they type in Google.com. :)

[advice]

Hi Kal,

That is what I thought was meant.

But I am located in Australia and use an australian ISP and as far as I can tell the two seem to be seperate.

Type in google .com in the browser and do a search and you get websites from all over the world.

Type in google.com.au in the browser and do a search and you only get .com.au names and websites hosted or maybe dns in Australia (or at least that is what it seems), anyway it is very different from google.com.

I was interested in what prompted the original comment.

Regards,

Glenn

[Aussies-Online]

OK I can see what is happening now.

If I type Google.com in the address bar or choose Google.com in my favorites, I am redirected to Google.com.au

However the default option is set to 'search the web'
One still need to change that option to 'search Australia'
So, unless that option is changed, you are still using Google.com despite being in Google.com.au

The fact that I am using the Google toolbar does not give me that option. Nor does the toolbar redirect me to au.

[Aussies-Online]

There is another thing about all this.

Google and several other search engines claims taking their information from DMOZ.

I am listed with DMOZ under the category
Regional - Oceania - Australia
But none of the search engines took notice of that.

Why is it so?

[Dez]

Q: how do I get the ip address of a web server?

A: there's a great site at www.geektools.com that has a whole bunch of lookup stuff like "whois" and "traceoute" and "ping" you can use to discover a heap of interesting data on sites.


note: you can also go to www.netcraft.com and find out what they are running ( if netcraft have crawled them of course which the probably have - if they haven't already, they do it in real time and you get the results instantly, it's really neat )


Q: why if I'm in DMOZ don't I show up in google etc ?

A: thats simple, the directory engines and search engines most sites use are often not cleanly integrated. Google for example will try their best to provide you the first one, two and even three retults at the very top of their search results page(s) a DMOZ ( google directory - yea right ) result before their crawler based searche engine results.

And the issue is that the engines are not always perfectly integrated, so the directory search technology and the postings ( thats what seach engines are built on - ask me more on what a posting is in my http://WebSearch.COM.AU thread of course ) base results are very very different technologies!

Then there's the fact that you will generally only get one or two, or three at the very very most with google for example, Directory results shown at the top of the search results pages, before they default back to their search engine technologies ( as apposed to their DMOZ based data ).


note: you can actaully easily tell the difference in the results pages when you search, the results that have the likes of Top> Internet> Web> Search> Engines> and such in the listing are 100% from the DMOZ data lifted for free by these sites.


And finally, DMOZ is starting to hurt, support for it is waning and many editors are now seriously over the fact that their hard work simply funds the billion dollar search engine industry that pays nothing back to them for the work, and generally doesn't credit them with anything for their efforts - and free work for nothing just sux, any two year old can tell you that.

Thats why crap like GRUB.ORG and ZEAL.COM are just space and time wasters for suckers who end up doing stuff for free to fund the Looksmart efforts ( congrats to you guys at Loooksmart for such things - nice work Zeal on a quick buck from Looksmart * grin * ).

++dez;