example.com vs example.fr and Google

country domain forwarding and masking

[pardon]

Hi
I have example.com doing well in google, the competition for the same keywords with competitor-example.country_TLD beats me only if the search is set to look for pages from that country. In fact example.com doesn't appear at all in serp even if I typed the domain it self when looking for websites from that country.

I'd like to keep my serp from general serach but also I'd like to have the same result when user select sites within the country.

I registred example.country_TLD and set permanent forwarding through cpanel to example.com

1- Shall I mask it or not? I'd like to mask it because it sounds pretty and memorable for local users. But .com is crucial for international users

2- What if I started a forum related to my keywords in example.country_TLD and have links to example.com

3- how safe is what I am doing and how to do it properly? I really don't want to risk my serp with .com

Thanks in advance

[edited by: tedster at 5:05 pm (utc) on July 28, 2007]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[tedster]

Your second idea - the forum - sounds like really interesting way to utilize a country specific TLD. When it comes to what some hosts call "domain masking" I have a lot of concern about what that means, technically. If you do a site search here on the phrase, you'll find many problems coming up around "domain masking."

I don't work much with country TLDs, but where I do we usually own them for protection purposes, not ranking, so we 301 redirect them to the main .com. I'm hoping other with more direct experience can add their comments.

[pardon]

anyone?