An unexpectedly popular tool on the old Merjis company site, was a form that helped search engine marketeers see Google Search results as if they were in another country. Type in your search, select the language and country, and you are sent to the Google Search Results for that query, in that country. Google have offered a similar tool within the AdWords user interface for some time – and it is still a better tool for AdWords than the one we’ve got, in many ways… because their tool allows regional and town/city level targeting. We know how to do it… we just haven’t had the time to put it up as a web page. Maybe next week…
Anyway, returning to the main web site, at last, you can do a *limited* Google Search As If You Were In Another Country Or Language… I say “limited”, because at present we’ve only got the UK, US, Germany, France and Japan covered, in English, French, German and Japanese. If you have a language or country you need, drop us a line or add a comment on the blog and we’ll add it.
So, how do we know this tool works?
When we first developed the tool, we phoned search engine marketeers that we knew in the USA, South Africa, Japan, Australia and other parts of the world, to check what they saw when they did a search, and we compared it with what our tool was showing. They were the same, subject to the usual Google variations of ranking that different data centres deliver.
If you want to get some independent evidence, and you’re not in the UK, give us a call, and we’ll tell you what we see – so you can check whether it’s really useful :)
So, what’s top, right now, for the search for “SEO”, in each of the UK, US, Germany, France and Japan? Here’s the tool results:
As you should be able to see, we’re pulling up different adverts, and different organic searches. If you just change the country code – it’s not enough.
So… How can this tool be improved for you?
