I would like to know your experiences with this.
1. Are these country specific tld's more likely to rank higher in that particular country than my .com name?
2. Are there any legalities, or can I just purchase these tld's, host them, and get my site out there?
3. Anything I need to watch for, any pitfalls?
4. Am I likely to do well with these tld's? My .com is number one in Google for many of my keywords in the natural serp's.
5. Someone recommended that I would need to host the tld in that specific country in order to rank well even with say google.co.uk What has been your experience?
6. Any advice who to go to for any non-English translations if I decide to buy a tld in a country that does not speak English?
Thank you for any advice and help.
2. Are there any legalities, or can I just purchase these tld's, host them, and get my site out there?
It varies. Some country TLDs have a residency requirement. Some may not require residency, but require some type of business presence. There can be other restrictions. You will have to review this on a case-by-case basis.
We're covering several forum topics here however I'll do my best where I can:
I have a very well established .com domain name that I would like to buy the .co.uk .co.nz, etc. for.
For co.nz information can be found here:
[dnc.org.nz...]
.co.uk can be bought, registered and hosted anywhere by anyone.
1. Are these country specific tld's more likely to rank higher in that particular country than my .com name?
If you're leaving your .com on US servers then the local tld's ought to rank higher in the regional Google SERPs so long as they are hosted locally. Some claim that they can rank highly for local tld's hosted in the US however, in my experience, I would not recommend that route.
2. Are there any legalities, or can I just purchase these tld's, host them, and get my site out there?
I've stickied you the info for which countries are easily available and the ones which are more difficult. If they are a free-for-all purchase then normally you can just host and get them out there however remember the local hosting for regional Google SERPs.
3. Anything I need to watch for, any pitfalls?
No doubt after I've posted this I'll think of a myriad of things however don't accept the first price offered for a domain name. There are huge differences.
4. Am I likely to do well with these tld's? My .com is number one in Google for many of my keywords in the natural serp's.
By natural SERPs you mean the .com results. Regional results vary considerably from the .com results. For instance if one looked at Germany you have three options when searching in Google.de:
1. www.com
2. pages in German
3. pages from Germany
Likewise German-speaking Googe Austria offers:
1. www.com
2. pages in German
3. pages from Austria
This happens in several countries, [google.ch...] is a perfect example of a multi-lingual country offering nine, yes nine, different language/search options.
5. Someone recommended that I would need to host the tld in that specific country in order to rank well even with say google.co.uk What has been your experience?
In my experience yes and there is no reason why a .com will not do well when hosted in that area. An important point is that I have some .cn and for these to perform well globally I host outside of China since their servers are extremely slow for most however buyers do like to see that they are dealing direct with a .cn company.
For the Chinese market in Chinese language I do host within China. This also applies to India and I run .in for global trading and .co.in for Indian trade.
Incidentally do ensure that when hosting in a specific country that the servers are located there. The largest UK hosting company actually has its servers in Germany and very few sites rank well in Google.co.uk with their results but are generally ok with .com...however that's no good if one is targeting the UK market!
6. Any advice who to go to for any non-English translations if I decide to buy a tld in a country that does not speak English?
If you are a specialised trade then ensure they understand your terminologies. Even between the UK and US I find huge differences with meanings and descriptions.
Try and get a local person to translate.
Good luck:-)
If you doo have visitors from those countries (UK) then thats a good diea,i have nought all CCtlds for my main .com domain name
Yes, I have customers and visitors from all over the world. I was wondering what the advantage is of using the co.uk tld for instance. I already have UK customers, but I'd like to increase my presence in that country. Is this the way to go about it?
