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I made my domain example.se. I work for the Dutch market and not for the Swedish market. Now I learned that Google Webmaster Tools judges that I am focusing on the Swedish market. (Geographic Target = Sweden). I can't change this in GWT. I am really not looking forward to changing the domain.

What are the other options? My backlink profile is clearly focused on the Dutch market. Will GWT pick up on this eventually?

dan
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Thomas Lapperre
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    Thanks for all the feedback. Much appreciated. Changing the domain seems the only option then. Or change my market to Sweden :) – Thomas Lapperre Jan 21 '14 at 09:48

2 Answers2

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.se is not on Google's list of generic top level domains that can be geo-targeted. That means that Google will always treat it as targeted to Sweden and nothing can change that.

You will need to create a second site on a .nl domain or on one of the generic domains from Google's list if you want to target a site to the Netherlands.

Your only option is to change your domain. Google will never pick up on your back link profile or any other signal that your .se domain is actually targeted to the Netherlands. Matt Cutts explains why Google works this way in a this video.

Stephen Ostermiller
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Google's Webmaster Tools will default to the country code of your TLD, but you can modify any assumptions using Set Geographic Target in the Webmaster Tools area (gear) as specified here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

See this screenshot:

enter image description here

dan
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Digital Chris
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