Local domain development?

To .at or not to .at, that is the question...

[stever]

At the moment I have an English language .com site giving information about an area in a non-native-English speaking country. From my referrals, I see some high terms which I cannot duplicate from my (non-English-speaking) ISP (in other words those terms are showing up on page 5 or 6 in Google). This implies that searches are being given IP specific returns and possibly that locally registered domains are being favoured (as in some discussion on this forum).
I do own the local variation on the .com domain and had planned to park it on top. However, if I can get higher returns in the local area from the local domain than from the .com I would like to develop it - the question is, how?
If I, for example, use the same template as the main site (although not the same content) and connect it in as a directory, do I run into problems with being a "duplicate domain"?
If I write one optimised page on the local domain and connect into the main .com domain, do I run into problems as a "doorway page"?
If I write a whole new 50 different pages on the local domain and link them to the .com domain, then I am doing this for PR and going aginst the spirit of what Google Guy has been talking about recently (and as a small webmaster and non-SEO professional I take his comments to heart).
Likewise, I am at present developing a winter version of this site (again with both .com and local version). I am growing more nervous about interlinking the two (or four?) sites - although it would seem a natural course to do so (this mountain in summer _here_, for example) - due to possible problems with linkage and same IP.

Any advice or comments welcomed!

[heini]

Specificaly answered I don't see why you would want to target the local, non english speaking Google with an english site, regardless of the TLD.
You do go for visitors from english speaking countries? They wouldn't search in a local Google.
But perhaps I misunderstood you here.
Generally I think you would have to decide for one of the two TLDs, as long as you are not going to translate, or put up different content.

If you do have different content and link the sites together - well IMO thats up to speculation if you get penalized. In my book it would be wrong to penalize for putting up two sites on one topic, and quite naturally linking them together.
It does collide with what a ranking mechanism like pagerank needs to work perfectly. But really thats a flaw in the concept of pagerank.
It's not that the web was made for pagerank, but rather the other way round.

Alas, Google rules, so who am I to give you an advice that might bring you in trouble...

Stever, I dare not tell you what I think should be legit: putting up two sites with different content on your topic, developing them both seperately, trying to get good independent links for both, and interlinking them sparsely.
Only some weeks ago I would have recommended this approach wholeheartedly, but today: ask Google. They make the rules.

You might also want to think about just putting all stuff, summer, winter, the content you were planning to put in the local version, all that stuff to enlarge your existing site. Additionally you could go for some smaller totally independent sites under the local TLD.

Now if all this sounds a bit confusing, I'm really sorry. But you're touching on a subject that is of crucial interest to all sites planning to diversify and localize.

[stever]

Danke, Heini, for your comments. In answer to your question, why would I want to use a local TLD for an English-speaking site, the first highest Google referrer I have is translate.google.com and the third highest is Google.de. Therefore if an .at domain can help me rank higher in Google.de (which I suspect) or even in Google.nl, then that would be a reason to develop it, rather than park it.
It's interesting that you have changed your opinion (or have become more unsure?) within a short period of time - it seems to be a time of increasing uncertainty in this particular field, especially for web developers outside the English-speaking world.
Maybe for multi-lingual Europeans it is a time of problems and increasing reliance on Google (see the other post about Google's Austrian dominance) but, on the other hand, given Google's American background and non-Eurocentric outlook, a time of opportunity as well?

[angiolo]

In google.de you have three search possibilities.

0 Das Web
0 Seiten auf Deutsch
0 Seiten aus Deutschland

If you have pages in German, no matter your dominion (.com, or .de or .at etc.), you will rank exactly the same within the first two possibilities.

Checking
0 Seiten aus Deutschland

researches are filtered to .de dominions.

In this case, having a .de dominion, you can gain some positions to .com or other dominions.

I don't know if google.at do exists. In Italy I am redirected to the Italian google version.

[heini]

>Google's American background and non-Eurocentric outlook,
a time of opportunity as well?

Stever, could you elaborate? Don't quite see the chances here...

[stever]

angiolo - thanks, your third point was the way I was thinking. Also, do you receive the same answers from Google if your IP shows you are checking from London, Berlin or Rome?
heini - here's what was going through my mind:
I am a manufacturer of widgets in the Midwest USA, say, St Louis. My options: .com, build content, external and internal linkage (I have to be careful of spammy links and not to spam domains).
Next I am a manufacturer of widgets in Europe. There is no google.eu and Esperanto, so I use .com for the main site - same as above. However, I don't want to be beaten in local engines so I also have (different) content with
widget.fr
widget.de
widget.it
widget.nl
widget.se
and because I also want to speak to the widget customers in their own language, I have
widgette.fr
wiedget.de
wigetto.it
wijdget.nl
wikdget.se
Now I have valid links between all domains because I can either say "to your local widgets" or "to widgets in your own language". Because I am European and google has split itself into regional identities with different ways of working, I can become a mini-hub with my .com and with good content and external links maybe a centre of authority for widgets?
Of course, this option is also open for the USA manufacturer because google doesn't know if he really has a European or worldwide operation or not but (very big generalisation) many Americans are not so aware of other languages or countries.

[vitaplease]

In google.de you have three search possibilities.
0 Das Web
0 Seiten auf Deutsch
0 Seiten aus Deutschland

Angiolo,

wow, I never realised that. Does not exist with google.nl, but then who would make pages in Dutch?

I just translated my site into German and put the pages in a sub-directory under my normal .com site. I guess to really get traffic I will need to go .de as well...

I wonder what percentage of searches only takes the "Seiten aus Deutschland"
Can anyone with a .de check in their logs?
(Google adds "...3DcountryDE" to the search result url).