What's Best? Using In-Country Top Level Domains Or Universal .com?

Brand preference of country TLDs

[johncass]

When communicating with people in their own country using the web, do people prefer to use use in-country top level domains or .com?

In registering a country domain name, is it better to use the country top level domain .co.uk, .de, .com.mx or use a .com top level domain name? I ask this question from the perspective of how a consumer in a country perceives their country domain name, rather than the SEO consequences of using a country top level domain. The websites I am thinking of developing will only be around for a short period of time, several months.

I want to know the brand preference of people in their own country for a country top level domain compared to the .com top level domain.

Countries where it would be good to get specific answers include:

Australia .com.au
Brazil .com.br
Canada .ca
France .fr
Germany .de
Japan .co.jp or .jp
Mexico .com.mx
Netherlands .nl
New Zealand .co.nz
United Kingdom .co.uk & .com

In addition, I'd like to know if using an in-country domain gives any advantage to a Google Adwords quality score for Pay per click ads. Here I separate the use of the country level top level domain from using the principal language of the country where I'm selecting a country top level domain, I would develop the website in the language of the country where I'm developing a website.

[buckworks]

Welcome to Webmaster World, John! :)

Speaking as a Canadian, I think .ca or .com are equally credible. Whichever one the business uses, I always advise that they try to get control of both if possible.

I don't know if there's any "official" advantage for a country-level TLD in regards to AdWords quality score, but I could easily envision that it would send good signals to the algorithm because of a slightly better clickthrough rate.

In AdWords (or other PPC contexts) I'd categorize using a country-level TLD as one of many details that might help, wouldn't likely hurt.

[EuropeanDomainCentre]

Nic.uk just sent out their domain report 2009 [nic.uk...] showing that 77% of British consumers were more likely to react to a co.uk domain when shopping than another top level domain.

If your market is local then definetely use the local tld. In some countries there are even restrictions to who can register making the domain more exclusive, and thereby securing it´s credibility

[johncass]

Thanks Buckworks!

Your advice about country level TLD sending good signals to the algorithm because of a better click through makes a lot of sense.

Thanks Europeandomaincentre, the research is very helpful and the exclusive nature of the domains because of the restrictions adding credibility is good advice.

[choster]

I agree with the above but make the United States an exception. Since the Internet was introduced to the U.S. public as the ".com" industry, and .us only made available to the public some years later, there is little public sense of .us as "America's domain." Rather, it is lumped in with the crowd of second-tier TLDs like .biz or .info.

[jmccormac]

Simple rule of thumb:
Country market = ccTLD.
Global market = .com TLD.

The .com is effectively the default US TLD. Most mature country level markets are ccTLD positive (they have more local ccTLD domains registered than .com). Others tend to be split between the ccTLD and .com TLDs with .net and org. occupying a lower market share that is based largely on historical registrations. The .biz, .info gTLDs have very low market shares, typically less than 3% of the market. The .mobi and other newer gTLDS generally have less than 1% of the market shares.

Regards...jmcc

[johncass]

Thanks Choster and Jmccormac, good insights.

[Leosghost]

For France you want the dot fr ( but you have to either live here or have a business registered here ..or use a "front" man business to register )..can be very very very expensive ..and complex ..and all the docs are in legalese French :)).. "domiciliation" and government requirements can cost much more than the cost of the reg itself ..and can also be relatively cheap ..and still a legal trustworthy deal ..shop around ..

Next you would want the dot com ..

( hardly anyone uses the dot net ..even for "services" they tend to use the .fr or the dot com if they can't get the dot fr ..and although they do know about the dot org and many use it ..they are mainly charities or non profits ..and average surfers expect that is what they will find on dot orgs ..and will think you are playing dirty scammer if you put commercial sites on dot orgs )

dot fr makes them feel safe ..( and means that they feel that in the case of a dispute they could use the law here ..or consumer protection would cover them ) ..in reality it frequently doesn't work like that ..but still perception is dot fr is kosher..

And mainstream media still tells MR et Mme average citizen to trust dot fr over "non french tld"

[Mr_Q]

Maybe I can contribute here a bit to this community since this subject is one I have accumulated quite some expertise in.

Less from a marketing standpoint, since I dont think this matters too much. One always markets a domain with its suffix anyway. So if you market XYZ.com interested users will go there and not to XYZ.de

Being a native German speaker, I have been exploring especially the cc.TLD issues.
The key question really is a legal question.

Germany i.e. subjects the internet to an increasing governmental control and with a *.de domain you tend to end up being everybodies "jackass".

It does not help to be the national of another country, nor to host your *.de domain elsewhere - German courts of law have made it quite clear repeatedly that a German *.de domain sibjects its contents to German laws.
And those are no good for any business!

Unless your business is clearly "local"(i.e. you own a bar in Germany, and your website is for that bar) and you consequently have no other choice but to stay local anyway - go as far offshore as you can!

My advice if you at all can:
* Get yourself a company in a friendly jurisdiction (tax evasion in Europe is not a crime but somewhat a "public sport" anyway)
* Get yourself a *.com/net/info/biz/org domaine
* Host it a far away from your place of business as possible.

Dont want to bore anyone with particulars so am gonna end this post here. If additional information is wanted/needed please let me know, I'll be happy to elaborate.

[johncass]

Thanks Leosghost and Mr_Q