Not too long ago the general web search even on country specific domain names would display broad results with all sorts of country specific sites listed. Nowadays though the serps are different, doing a search for "washing machine" at www.google.co.uk and www.google.com provides VERY different results whereas a search for "cheats" at both engines provides very similar results!

By the looks of things Google has been doing some keyword research, into what people search for when they are in "buying" mode and they now filter results on a country specific search level.

The following are reasons we believe that affect whether you are shown or not:

• Do you mention £, $?
• Server location? US, UK?
• Domain name? .com, .co.uk?
• Whois information, are you a UK resident?
• Do you mention the address on the website? (Thanks Tom)

The above is all fair enough, but does this mean:

• The US get more traffic for the keywords Google gets wrong?
• That EU domains rank well in the EU only?
• That websites mentioning the € rank well in EU only?
• World Wide sellers need to have multiple websites covering US and UK?