Location & Top-Level Domain (TLD) Selection

Location & Top-Level Domain (TLD) Selection

Some regional-based search engines or indexes will only list sites that are registered in their country code. If your site exclusively or primarily caters to a specific country, then you will most likely want to register a domain using the local country code.

Some search engines will still show your site in regional based search results if your site is hosted within that country, has links to and from other local sites, and/or has your address and phone number in the page text, but many directories are extremely picky and will only list regional domains.

As search progresses, localization of results will become more common. Some of the major search engines already give sites a regional ranking boost based upon where the site is hosted and the domain extension.

If you develop a regional domain (.co.uk for example), I also suggest buying the

.com version of your domain, if it is available, and forwarding it to the regional domain you registered. By buying the .com version and forwarding it your site, you help retain traffic you may have lost by people forgetting to put your region specific domain extension in their address bar when they type the website address directly into the address bar.

I prefer to use a .com version of a URL over other generic TLDs. People may assume your site is a .com even if it is .net, .biz, .org, or .info when they go to look for it on the web. If all they remember is your domain name, they may type your domain name followed by ‘.com’ because ‘.com’ is the default TLD in most people’s heads. If you don’t own the .com version as well, you are giving some of your hard-earned traffic to a competitor.

If you are running a charity or organizational website a .org may be seen by some people as a sign of credibility.

It is a good idea to place your business location on your web pages. If you are in a country where the search technology is primitive, local searchers will frequently add the country or city name to their searches, and if you have them on your pages you stand to be returned as a relevant result for more searches.