UK Political Bloggers with global (.com) domains have a problem - or, rather, a missed opportunity. They are very difficult to find in the most popular search engine used in the UK.

For example, if you search for Guido Fawkes in google.co.uk using his very own catchphrase, you won’t find him .

Google has just under 80% of the UK search market. Within that 80%, four times as many Google searched are done on google.co.uk rather than google.com. That’s a lot of people who won’t find Guido.

Why is Guido absent from Google UK?

Here’s a test with the most popular UK political blogger - Guido Fawkes. I put Guido’s tag line: “plots, rumours, conspiracy” into Google and Google UK.

For Google, no problem - Guido is at the top.

For google.co.uk, Guido is nowhere to be seen. In fact, I could not find him at all. Blog directories, blog aggregators, blogs quoting Guido, blogs “Google Bombing” Guido - all were there. But Guido - missing.

I have seen the same effect on other blogs, and political websites. Many top UK political websites are buried at the bottom of the Google UK search results.

 

Why this is a Problem

In short because something like half of all UK searches go through google.co.uk. And that is a colossal lost opportunity for political bloggers wanting to reach as many UK people as possible.

To look at the Hitwise UK information in more detail, they say:

Visits to www.google.co.uk have been increasing and Google’s share of the search market is also increasing - up 9% year on year in October to 78%.  

(This 78% figure also includes www.google.com.)

Within this 78% figure, google.co.uk searches account for 66% of the total, which gives a total of 51% of UK searches going through google.co.uk.

(That data is a few months old, but the trend was for google.co.uk to rise further, perhaps with Google’s overall market share reducing).

What is the Cause

The problem here is twofold:

• Google dominates the UK search market.
• Google puts a high value on a .uk domain name, while many UK bloggers and organisations have been working with international domain names for years.

What can be done about it?

• In the long term, we need a more competitive search market.
• Sites using international domain names need to think very carefully.

I will be looking at this subject in more detail this weekend, and describing my results where I have tested several blogs. Come back on Saturday afternoon.

Tags: google uk, google, seo, seatch engine optimisation, political blogging problems, guido fawkes, search engine, market share, lost opportunity, uk political blogs, blog aggregators, google bomb, newsnight

[tags]newsnight,google uk, google, seo, seatch engine optimisation, political blogging problems, guido fawkes, search engine, market share, lost opportunity, uk political blogs, blog aggregators, google bomb[/tags]