discuss How Google Treats gTLDs and ccTLDs

[Silentptnr]

I was reading yesterday and was reminded of the importance of how Google treats domain extensions.

Basically, Google says it treats all gTLDs the same.

As for ccTLDs, Google looks at them for the most part as being most relevant to the specific country. There are some exceptions with the ccTLDs where Google allows you to indicate what country your domain is aimed at. Here's a list of the ccTLDs that Google treats as generic:

.ad – Andorra
.as – American Samoa
.bz – Belize
.cc – Cocos (Keeling) Islands
.cd – Democratic Republic of Congo
.co – Colombia
.dj – Djibouti
.fm – Micronesia
.io – British Indian Ocean Territory
.la – Laos
.me – Montenegro
.ms – Micronesia
.nu – Niue
.sc – Seychelles
.sr – Suriname
.su – Soviet Union
.tv – Tuvalu
.tk – Tokelau
.ws – Samoa

These ccTLD extensions seem like they would be more valuable because Google treats them as generic.

 

[Name Trader]

Wow. I knew about cc co tv ws but never knew there was so many. others. Why isn't us on this list?

 

[Silentptnr]

Probably because the .us extension is auomatic in the us market. It should be on the list though. Some .us sites might want to geotarget other countries with a specific .us domain.

 

[Silentptnr]

Maybe because its a restricted extension. Not sure.

 

[Name Trader]

Maybe because its a restricted extension. Not sure.

Aren't most all of these ccTLD's restricted extensions, in one way or another? Besides, US has a huge connotation beyond just .us cctld, just like most of the other extensions on the Google's global ccTLD list.

 

[TERADOMAIN]

Thanks for sharing. I knew about this list long time ago because of .io ... I used to own lots of .io so I shared this list on few .io thread here long time ago.

I never get chance to share here. I am glad you did it. It is really very good info to know about it. This makes difference in selling strategy of certain extension.

This list helped me sold so many of my .io for good profit because I can represent the name with head high because of google. Hahahaha..

Thanks

 

[Silentptnr]

I knew a while back but forgot. Seems it is a very good selling point for these extensions.

I think google should regularly expand this list.

 

[FNet]

The logic behind this list is that google believes that whoever develops sites on these domains wants to target globaltraining. For example, they believe that .io sites do not target the citizens of Indian ocean only. And they are right.
About .us , they believe that whoever buys it wants to target the USA. So they treat it as a ccTLD as they should.
I want to say this: ccTLDs give initially a SEO advantage over gTLDs for the country they target. So, between two sites and all other factors equal the ccTLD has the advantage for the specific country at SERPs. But really, Google algorithm is clever and from the language, the content, the backlinks and other factors they understand the country target. If for example the whole page content is written in Bulgarian, the Google knows which country is getting targeted. There is strong belief that the advantage of ccTLDs is not a lasting one, with time the gTLD can rank equally well for the specific country.
About general TLDs, the good thing is that you can say to Google which country you want to target from their webconsole.

 

[robert widener]

.ms is the domain extension for the Caribbean island monserrat