Targeting Countries

[Peter]

Probably a pretty obvious answer, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Say there is a large forum (or more) on a specific topic. So I go to Google, search for the forum and 3-5 come up. I then click on the "Pages from Australia" link and nothing comes up.

If I was then going to start a forum on the same topic, would it be worthwhile to target Australian users? Would it be too hard to compete with these other forums or would it be worthwhile to try and get all the potential Australia users?

 

[Payton]

Maybe if it's a regional type forum... like Harley motorcycle riders in Australia... I don't know about more general topics... that's the beauty of the internet, you get to interact with people all over the world, why go backwards?

 

[Peter]

Yeah, I see what you mean.

 

[rembrandt]

Say there is a large forum (or more) on a specific topic. So I go to Google, search for the forum and 3-5 come up. I then click on the "Pages from Australia" link and nothing comes up.

If I was then going to start a forum on the same topic, would it be worthwhile to target Australian users? Would it be too hard to compete with these other forums or would it be worthwhile to try and get all the potential Australia users?

I can't say I can really answer the question as I think it's a matter of if you think there is a place for you forum then I would do it and then work on ranking it in Google.

Search results vary between different data centres, if you search for a broad keyword at www.google.com and search the same broad keyword at www.google.com.au you will find the results from www.google.com.au are more geared towards Australian sites even if you have select the option for web not within Australia.

If you create a more targeted keyword with say three phrases then you will start to see a bit more consistent results between google.com and google.com.au

Although I've never tested this yet, you'll most likely rank better in Australia if your domain name ends with .com.au but in saying that if you optimise a site long enough you will eventually get the results you want.