Informed Webmaster

I just checked a standard keyword search term for "Web Design {town}" and a company from Auston Texas ranks first. I'm in Canada, and using a "town" reference very close to where I am - in a rather small-ish town. I'm also no longer into SEO, nor am I SEO-ing my site as I don't depend on traffic for business, but this kind of SERP listing for this company over 2000 miles away in a different country ranks first makes me wonder. I thought it would have been more difficult these days to rank in another country, but it doesn't seem to be as difficult as one might think.

I have no idea where they host, nor what they're doing to come up so high in the SERPs, but sheesh, there it is.

I have experienced this also while Christmas window shopping. Search phrase, Canada still brought up USA results that weren't worth paying the shipping cost.

On the other hand, searching for company name, state initials is bringing up local results.

Go figure...

I thought Google was showing close to home results whether you liked that or not.

As a comment: I recently searched for X near me and the top listing was someone selling X far far away but they had 'near me' on their page.