Understanding Search Engine Rankings

We often hear people say, “I want to be number one on Google.” Fair enough, but what do they actually mean by that? The thing is, there’s a big difference between ranking first on Google Australia with “pages from Australia,” or with “all the web” checked, or on Google U.S. Understanding this difference is very important for SEO strategy. You need to understand who your market is, what version of Google their using, and where you need to rank.

To demonstrate the difference let’s take pretty popular search term, “flowers,” and run it through a number of different Google sites.

Google.com.au (with “pages from Australia” checked)

First up, when searching only pages from Australia, we get Easy Flowers Australia ranked one, The Bridal Flowers Shop two, and Flying Flowers three. These are all Australian online flower shops, and you’d expect their Google ranking to be fairly important to their business. The second and third ranked sites, don’t appear to rank at all on the rest of the searches. Coming in at number 16 is Fast Flowers, an Australian company who also own a Roses site.

Google.com.au (searching all the web)

When we search for “flowers” on Google Australia with “all the web” checked we get fairly different results. First up is Virtual Flowers, followed by 1-800 flowers, both US online flower shops. Number three is another 1-800 flowers page, with Virtual Florist coming fourth and FTD (Fresh Trusted Delivery) fifth. Our top ranking site from above, Easy Flowers Australia, is now at number eight. This might not seem like a problem for flowers, since you’d expect a U.S site to only deliver to the U.S right? Wrong. FTD, actually delivers flowers in Australia and, as we saw, ranks three spots ahead of Easy Flowers Australia. The UK Flying Flowers site comes in at 123, but the Australian site doesn’t appear to rank at all. Fast Flowers ranks 341.

Google.com

Now get this. When we search google.com, Easy Flowers Australia – who, remember, ranked one in pages from Australia – comes in at 171. This time, 1-800 flowers comes in first, followed by Florist Flowers, FTD and Virtual Florist.

Other Google Sites

On Google UK, Google Sweden and Google France, the top ranked sites swap around with each other, but Easy Flowers Australia drops right back into the 200s.

More than just number one

Which all goes to show that you need to change your search engine optimization tactics, depending on which is the most important market for you. Just another little extra thing to consider when chasing those search engine rankings.