Over the past few month’s I have noticed irrelevant results appearing in the Google.co.uk SERPS! Many of the sites are US sites and some are even Canadian, Australian or Even Korean. There’s no question that some of these sites are irrelevant to searchers.

One example I took a look at is “LG Laptop Battery”

The first 2 results are great, both .co.uk domains and both UK sites. However the next result is a .au site, an Australian site. The next is a US site, then another Australian site and 3 more US sites, lastly is a .co.kr.

Now I don’t have a problem with buying product from another country, sometime you can get great bargains, however the shipping fee is bound to be high, especially from Australia, not to mention it will take a while to get here.

I have noticed similar results to these when searching for other products, and to me these searches should be mostly UK, as that is where I want to buy from.

Dave Naylor had looked at the possibility of this being a conspiracy to promote US sites, however I think it’s purely a problem with the algorithm, especially as it’s not all US sites appearing.

Also with Google Caffeine just around the corner you would expect a fix, however using the same search term, although different results I am still getting US and Australian site, not good!

Google Caffeine might not be the pick me up after all.

P.S Here is a link to the UK version of Google Caffiene

So Microsoft is trying to compete with Google, and in a big way!

Microsoft released Bing at the end of May and it looks like they are aiming to compete with Google, good luck with that!

Microsoft describe Bing as “a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions”

At first look Bing appears to be very simplistic (not as simplistic as Google, but can you get any simpler than Google?). When you first view the homepage you might think you have stumbled upon a photographers holiday snaps site.

Simple and also very appealing pictures.

When I search for the term SEO here are the results I get

Similar results to Google (but not exactly the same) and with some related searches that appear to be taken from a list of most searched terms to the left.

The layout itself is pretty much just Google (why try and fix something that isn’t broken, right?)

Moving on to the Local results it appears they have adopted the same approach as Google, it appears that on Bing United Stated they are using yellowpages.com for the sponsored results and then a standard free listing.

It’s a shame that the UK version has limited results and not really that relevant either (see below image). I’m not sure if there is any official sponsored results reseller yet, but they do appear to be getting results from Thomson Local.

There is one area on Bing that I really do like and that is the Travel section, it’s pretty much a price compassion site, but it does have the potential to become to only place to search for flights, although its not on the UK version yet, the US version seems pretty well laid out and user friendly.

There is a lot of positives for Bing but is it really that feasible to be taking on the might of Google?