Targeting Overseas Visitors

With a local TLD domain

[Simsi]

Hey chaps

I'm a little confused. Say you have a small company in the Indian Ocean with an ".io" domain name who need to attract customers from the UK and USA.

My understanding is that Google in its wisdom assumes that a company with a ".co.uk" domain should rank better in Google.co.uk, and similarly with ".com" in Google.com. Is this company at a serious disadvantage to the PPC crew who own the .co.uk and .com domains or is it worth them investing in the site's marketing?

Cheers,

Simsi

[Quadrille]

Plan your tlds and hosting on the basis of your target audience.

If your audience is international, then you need the .com

Also buy relevant local suffixes and 301 to the international domain.com

The converse is equally true - if you seek a local audience, get domain.localtld, but ALWAYS buy the .com and 3012 to the local domain.

[Simsi]

Thanks Quadrille. Looks like a victory for the PPC squatters then I guess :( Gotta question Google's equality policy if this is the way it is though.

[edited by: Simsi at 9:26 pm (utc) on Aug. 30, 2006]

[Quadrille]

Nothing to do with Google - it's more about the default advantages of .com - it's always been that way.

Whenever you buy a domain, ALWAYS obtain the .com, if only to 301 to your chosen tld

Nine times out of ten, if the .com is unavailable, you are better off rethinking your domain name.