How does MSN treat country TLD domain sites?

Do they rank as well?

[smilybilly]

Do sites which are .us, .uk, and .tv rank as well as .com on msn search?

Do they get a preference or geo-targetting advantage?

thanks,
sb

[fish_eye]

As far as MSN goes, it kind of depends on how the punter gets to their search.

I am in Australia. Real example - just the names have been changed etc.

If I go to hotmail.com, log on (and they know I'm Australian) and then search for "All About Example" then example.com.au is ranked number 2.

If I go to msn.com (and I'm even still logged on) then example.com.au is 30.