Are Google algos different between .co.uk and .com?

[kentaro-256929]

I have a site that is starting to rank well (top 10 to top 50) for dozens of keywords in Google.co.uk but very little traction in .com. Google.com is the primary market. Webmaster tools is set to US, less than 1% of links to the site are the UK TLD or hosted in the UK. Keywords I'm ranking for in UK are medium to high competition with up to 16k exact search volume per month in the US. I just started to get ranked for these keywords in .co.uk in the past week, and I do rank for some long tail keywords in google.com. I have a handful of keywords ranking in google.ca and google.fr as well, but next to nothing for google.com. I have been building links for one month.

I can think of a few possible explanations:

- There is a delay in updating the rankings for Google.com and the rankings similar to my .co.uk rankings will come soon

- Google.com vs .co.uk use a different algorithm

- My site is penalized in .com only

Of course, there is no way to be sure what the reason is, but what do you think is the most likely? Thanks!

[TakeshiYoung]

Yes, each Google site is slightly different and returns different search results. Does your site use a TLD other than .com? Your TLD can impact your rankings in the different geographies.

[kentaro-256929]

Yes it's a dot com. Has anyone experienced a delay between ranking in UK or CA before US?

[TakeshiYoung]

The rankings between different geos can be different all the time... why are you checking your rankings in google.co.uk in the first place, if you're not targeting the UK specifically?

[kentaro-256929]

Just to see what kind of traction I'm getting for my link building efforts. The rise in serps was slow in .com so I thought I'd check other Google TLDs and my rankings happened to be much higher and more consistent outside of .com.

[toddmumford]

One possibility is that the level of competition in the us insofar as domain authority and inbound links for competitors is much greater than in the UK.

Another possibility is that you picked up a good UK based link, which drove up those rankings.

Has the site always been targeted in GWT to US?