country domain or .com for site about a specific city?

[kapow]

Will a country domain help the rank of a travel related site for a specific city in Europe?

e.g.
- a site about Amsterdam
- the site is for searchers from any country

Is it better to have keyword.nl or keyword.com?

Sorry - I think I posted about this recently but I can't find the thread.

[BlobFisk]

I think that people are still far more likely to try a .com TLD before the try the country TLD. However, if they are doing a search engine query, I don't think that the TLD plays much of a part in the ranking...

[Torben Lundsgaard]

In terms of SEO a local domain will get you higher rankings on many search engines. You will find a few SE's, which filter out anything but the local domain.

[kapow]

I have found that name.co.uk gets a boost in the algo for queries like
- keyword uk
- keyword london

So I'm assuming / wondering if two similar sites
- name.com
- name.nl
Would name.nl appear higher for a search on 'keyword amsterdam'?

Also, is there any problem these days getting a country domain e.g. Netherlands, France etc if the company isn't in that country?

[BlobFisk]

In Ireland, to get a .ie name the criteria are quite strict. You need to have a Registered Business Name in order to get the company.ie domain. The full Terms and Conditions can be viewed here [domainregistry.ie]. I've heard that there are a couple of other EU countries that have similar policies, but I'm afraid I don't know which ones.

That's interesting about the SEO and TLD's... thanks for the info.

[kapow]

What about name.ZZ.nl? (what ever the options are for that country).

[BlobFisk]

The Dutch Domain Registry is here [domain-registry.nl] in English.

From the information page on registering a .nl domain (here [domain-registry.nl]) it seems that you have to go through an authorised .nl registrar (listed here [domain-registry.nl]), so perhaps the best thing to do would be to contact one of the authoristed registrars (they call them category I participants) listed on the site.

[kapow]

Thanks BlobFisk

What I really need to know is if it will help or hinder my sites rank on world searches.

[BlobFisk]

I don't think that it will have a negative impact - I don't really see how it could.... although, I'm no expert at all in SEO - you could ask in the SEO World, where all the experts hang out! :)