inbound - 9:17 pm on Oct 15, 2009 (gmt 0)

My experiences have been that getting lots of links to the localised site from that country is the way forward, it helps the search engines decide which site is the right one. Any global links (ones that come from sites that themselves serve many countries, if you are lucky enough to get featured on large properties) should go to the .com and the .com should have links to the local sites as part of the template.

I think the way search engines see it as that if you are truly big enough to have localised sites then you should be big enough to get enough links to all of them. Once you pass an, unfortunately, undefined point you'll see the authority status clearly.

It does not matter if you only have 1 site showing in one territory, as long as it's the right one and it ranks well.