Have you ever noticed that not all countries have the same affinity of .com domains that we do? In many countries, their country code top level domain names (ccTLD’s) are more widely used than .com domains. You may have seen some before. China rolls with the .cn, Canada uses .ca, Francey Pants uses .fr, and so on.
Flags of the world
So what’s with the United States and their precious .com’s? This article from SitePoint explains how U.S. companies had difficulties in the past registering the .us ccTLD and therefore looked to alternatives, the most popular being .com. Now, .com domains are recognized as international domains.
If you you’re looking to reach residents in other countries, it’s best to purchase an additional domain using their ccTLD. In Japan (.jp), for example, their search engines (Google Japan, Baidu) give more love to domains that end with the .jp extension. From an SEO perspective, it pays to have this domain to put you in a better spot in the search engines. You’ll also want to make sure the domain is hosted in the country that you are trying to reach. There are other techniques used in international search marketing, but I’ve found this to be the most reliant.
Hope you enjoyed the refresher course.
