Google Bias on WHOIS information

[alexpooley]

I have some sites where all I have done is picked a phrase based .com domain name and thrown up Associate-O-Matic (a script that pulls products from Amazon). For months now I've observed a bias of Australian visitors flowing to these sites. There is absolute no bias in the site's content that would favour Australian's over anyone else. The only give away that the site has an Australian origin is in the WHOIS information, in which case, it's obvious the ownership of the site is in Australia.

Here's a capture from two sites in my Google Analytics.

Site A:

Site B:

Are my suspicions correct that Google will bias so strongly based on WHOIS info alone in the absence of other information? Could I target different geographic niches simply by changing my WHOIS information for these sites? Anyone know where I can setup PO Boxes for different countries online, and can they trash whatever mail I receive?

 

[Dolbz]

I'm pretty sure they do use IP location in determining how to rank it in country specific searches. Where is your server hosted? If it's in australia I think that would be the main factor. They could do the same with whois but I think it's less likely

 

[alexpooley]

I referred to the WHOIS information rather than my server's IP in my original query. But seeing as you bring up my server location, it's located in the US as Australian hosting is much more expensive.

I'm pretty sure they do use IP location in determining how to rank it in country specific searches. Where is your server hosted? If it's in australia I think that would be the main factor. They could do the same with whois but I think it's less likely