The case for Google UK specific Search Results
Written by LeeIn light of the recent loss of index pages of .com sites in UK Specific filtered pages in Google, I thought it wise to enlighten the many doubters who think that not having a listing in this version of Google is not a headache…….
The statistics that I have been able to gather is based on our own tracking tool which our hugely talented developers have put together. V3 of our tracking will contain a log-file parser so we can capture information the likes of Norton (Why thank you Symantec) don’t want us to have.
SITE 1 - DATA TAKEN FROM NOVEMBER 06
Total Google Referrals (1266)
ORGANIC GOOGLE - 543 (43%)
ORGANIC GOOGLE UK - 307 (24%)
ORGANIC GOOGLE UK FILTERED - 416 (33%)
SITE 2 - DATA TAKEN FROM NOVEMBER 06
Total Google Referrals (2207)
ORGANIC GOOGLE - 1256 - (57%) Conversion to sale 0.51% - (Approx 6 orders)
ORGANIC GOOGLE UK - 521 - (23%) Conversion to sale 2.04% - (Approx 10 orders)
ORGANIC GOOGLE UK FILTERED - 430 (20%) - Conversion to sale 2.50% (Approx 10 orders)
FYI: The top search to conversion engines for this site are AOL (5.48%) and MSN (4.20%)
As you can see from the statistics above there are a great deal of people coming on to the sites via Google UK specific traffic and people who ignore UK specific traffic are mad. The conversion factor from site is higher than that of both other version of Google that we are tracking.
The loss results in Google UK Specific is a blow for many online businesses, that stats from site 2 are testament to this.
Forunately, this site is .co.uk but if it had of been affected by this Google issue, it is possible that 10 orders would have been lost!
This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 3:00 pm and is filed under General, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
As Lee mentioned earlier, it’s a big issue for commercial sites right now because the holiday spending season is almost upon us. From a profitability standpoint, this is a very bad time for your homepage to disappear from the Google UK filter results.
Thanks for this blogpost and info! I’ll be gathering info like this from other countries as well, can i use your data in a blogpost about that?
I am happy for you to use data with regard to the effectiveness of country specific results, don’t forget to mention us at Fresh Egg :)
Zoo Jewellery have now reappered back in the UK search specific version of Google for their main KeyPhrase of ‘Silver Jewellery’. But of the sites that I am monitoring that is the only one thus far.
I’ve been looking for something like this for yonks.
It would be great to see a larger sample size. Would you consider publishing the data from perhaps one months referrals?
Rgds
Richard
I’ve carried out similar research across a number of UK sites. Of the total Google traffic I found 4-10% came from Google.com, 35-45% from Google.co.uk “UK only” and 45-55% from Google.co.uk without a filter.
I’m managing several UK hosted dot.coms. The loss of “UK only” traffic is highly problematical.
Yes, the problem continues. Ammon has received communication from Google with regard to the issue and we trust that ther permanent fix is soon to flush through the system, but I feel it is going to be too late for a number of companies that have missed out on lucrative Christmas trade.
I am very disappointed with this as it has taken the shine off what promised to be a stunning time for some clients.