Should I use ccTLDs for sites not targeted to those countries?
Updated on: 8 October 2013
This video talks about the use of ccTLDs for sites that are not targeted to those countries and how it will affect the site as a whole. Matt Cutts discouraged the use of top level domains already used by countries which is a common practice of people who wanted a cheaper non-.com domain which is far more expensive.
The video highlights the following points:
- Everyone is free to choose their domain. However, it conflicts on top level domain names of other countries. Some domain names are already being in used overwhelmingly by a certain country and its intent is to represent that certain country. Using a top-level domain but consequently changes its intention is a disservice to that country.
- Using customed TLDs will enable the webmasters to create a novelty but there might be consequences.
- Meanwhile, there are generic country code top level domains like .IO which refers to something related to Indian Ocean. In such cases, Google examines the list of websites in that certain domain and if they determined that it is generic, then there will be no problem.
- There is no assurance that using specific top level domains of countries and changing its intentions will work because it may or may not work for some people.
In order to achieve better internet marketing rankings, you should:
- Use a novelty domain which does not conflict with country codes since Google may misinterpret and rank your pages lower.
- Always check if the ccTLDs are being used or used generically or not by other countries so as not to change the intention which disservice the country.
- Avoid ccTLDs that are already used in other countries so that anyone in the world or anyone in your community will see and access in their Google results.
- Include content which can be seen or most likely desirable to be seen in most places. If you’re using a country code top-level domain, include details about certain topics which is trending among Google users in that country where you use such ccTLD. However, if your site targets readers and visitors from worldwide, it is best to purchase a .com domain because the investment might be worth it.
2 Comments
matt n.
November 19, 2013
Are these ccTLDs used to help prevent spammers from certain countries or is it to optimize the site for those specific countries? It’s probably an obvious answer but I just want to make sure that I am understanding this concept.
admin
November 20, 2013
It does not help to prevent spammers from other countries.
The main point is for Google to sort their data and display the the most relevant results.
Example: If you stay in Singapore and you type “buy flowers”, the results from other countries does not benefit you as it is not logical to buy flowers from other countries and send to back to Singapore. So, Google will tend to return results that are from Singapore.
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