EAT Question - Would a Malaysian Address Affect the US Traffic to a News Site

[Darth]

I know that some part of EAT is ensuring that there is a real person behind a website/business. That is fine.

However, what if you are a news and content publisher based in Malaysia, for example, however all your traffic and audience is the United States.

If you put a proper/legit/correct Malaysia company, address, etc on the about page of the site, could it effect your US traffic?

 

[Ryuzaki]

If you put a proper/legit/correct Malaysia company, address, etc on the about page of the site, could it effect your US traffic?

This is an interesting question. Who knows how granular Google gets with all this localization stuff. I'd say being on a .com domain instead of a .my would be the biggest factor.

I don't have any kind of answer based out of actual experience here, nor could I venture a guess on how much weight this single variable would be given, but in my gut I feel like it's likely harmful to some degree, even if a semi-negligible degree. I think you probably think so too, which is why you asked. Our hunches are hunching together.

It's probably safe to ask "what would the user think" in these cases and assume Google may have modeled this out in some way. It would create a negative sentiment, I would think, in all users, and therefore Google (if they have bothered yet) would do the same.

I'd just get a P.O. Box or list the address of an apartment somewhere, etc. How fake you want to get would be up to you. My point is I'd rather fake it than have a Malaysian address on my US-based site.