I’m regularly asked about local domain names and whether they are worth using on a blog.
My answer usually revolves around the question of ‘what audience are you trying to reach?‘ Let me explain.
When I first secured my own domain name I chose a .au (Australia) domain without really giving much thought to it. I figured as I was an Aussie I might as well include that in the domain and as the .com version of the domain was taken I though it was the next logical step. That was a naive decision and one that I regretted later (although it did have some benefits too).
There were a number of impacts of having a local domain:
- the blog ranked relatively well in Google.com.au’s results – being an easily identified Aussie site it seemed to get priority when Aussies were searching for terms related to it
- the blog didn’t rank as well on Google.com – .com domains (and other non localised ones) seemed to get ranked higher in other international versions of Google
- confusion with readers – time and time again I heard from readers that they kept forgetting to add the .au. As a result they ended up on other sites and some gave up on even coming to the site.
Ultimately it was a mistake for me because my goal was to connect with an international audience rather than just and Australian one. I ended up with some good Aussie search traffic which was nice but it could have ranked better internationally which probably cost me traffic.
Take Home Advice: As a result, I generally advise people to go for a local domain name IF they are trying to reach a local audience. If you’re looking to connect with an international audience go for the .com or another non localised domain like .net or .org (.com is my #1 preference though).
The other reason to get a localised version of a domain in addition to the .com is as a defensive move OR if you think you might produce a local version of your blog at some point in the future. Having the local domain means someone else can’t get it and it gives you the option of expanding into local markets (as Gawker blogs have done with some of their more popular blogs).
Do you use a local domain name? What are the advantages or disadvantages from your perspective?
I don’t know – .com is still the most widely accepted, no matter what your target is. I can see a localized version if the domain you just have to have is already taken and you don’t want to pay top dollar for it.
An argument can be made that very few people actually type the domain name into their browser anymore though. Most people find blogs and sites through links, whether it be in Google searches, social media, or advertising.
I don’t know… I don’t put much consideration into a domain for a new project. My thoughts are people are going to find it organically soon enough.
— Jason
Would having both work well? ie. Having a .au domain to rank well in Google.com.au and a .com domain to rank well in Google.com . Then do a permanent redirect of the .au domain to .com.
When my .com domain was stolen, I was thankful for two important things:
1/ I had the .co.uk domain to use as back-up
2/ I used a third-party RSS feed manager (Feedburner, to be precise)
During the couple weeks or so that my .com was out of my possession (due to a Gmail vulnerability at the time) I transferred my blog content and the feed URL to the .co.uk, then published a blog post informing my readers what had happened, and asking for help.
And what a huge help they were.
So two tips from me, Darren, on top of your one to buy the .com:
1/ Use the localised domain for back-up, if nothing else
2/ Use a third-party feed manager
I don’t have a localized address.
Then again, I’m in the US, and we think the world revolves around us, anyway :)
If your location is not obvious to your readers, it can be hard for them to remember the domain name. I have no idea where some of my favorite bloggers live.
I did finally bite the bullet and register the .org version of my domain over the weekend. I signed up for some hosting (of a different domain, which was previously only used for email) and got a free domain registration as part of the deal.
As a blogger from the US, this issue doesn’t have the same type of impact on me as bloggers from other countries. *.com or *.net is obviously the standard, and there is no reason to stray from that.
I would think that for any site based around online commerce (especially make money blogging) the non-geographic domains would be better. It seems like Retailers would be the only ones to greatly benefit from the improved geographic ranking.
What I’m curious about is the *.mobi domains. I know that a large number of people read blogs on their mobile phones. There are certain blogs I tend to avoid reading on my phone because they are hard to navigate, and others that i always read on my phone. Obviously, if you don’t have a mobile following, it isn’t worth messing with… but if you do have a strong following that checks your site from their phone, do you think this type of domain is worth messing with?
i am not using my own domain. (i don’t have the budget to pay for it) but maybe in the future and i shall take your advice.
I pretty much stuck with a .com on all of my site selections….only once have I deviated from it. With the recent success of Failblog.org, I decided to register my domain GifGirl.org and have had a lot of success with it thus far… getting more than 50k visitors in my 3rd month! And you have proved that the .net can be driven successful too…
I use the local domain for the local audience and .com for the international audience. The sites have different subjects too. Thank god the names I wanted were not taken :)
Vernon has a good question about having both then redirecting. Is that a good tactic?
This may be silly but does the US have a .US?? I’ve never seen that. . .
Hi Darren,
I agree that a local domain name has limitation and it is targeted to local searches.
The website that I started with the local domain name has great advantage for local business, which I am helping some of the local business.
It has helped me get very targeted traffic and has closed a lot sales due to the domain name.
What I can suggest is to find out what is number of searches in the country, then decide to go into it if it has great local searches.
From there onwards spread out using long tail to capture traffic that are in smaller niches.
Great post. I’ve debated about getting a .us domain forever and have not acted on that. I do think, for me, a .com is the most useful as I’m reaching an international audience. It also has a certain cachet, which I feel is waning. Does anyone else agree? The .com cachet is less and less??
Stephen,
If you tell people your domain name is whatever.net, 80% of them will type whatever.com. So, I always stick with .com. I will rather change my domain name than my extension.
I’m using a local domain (Venezuela) but I’m working to move to an international domain name (.com)
I suggest buying both the .com, .net, .org, and your own local domain .w/e. However I myself only own the .com version and I think it’s the right first move. Once the blog takes off some more I’ll most probably buy the rest on the list I mentioned.
My arguments for buying a .com domain were simple. It’s a commercial site and I want to reach the world. :)
So there you go.
@Lydia – The U.S. does indeed have a .us domain. It’s not too common though unless the .com is taken.
You should definitely consider a local domain if you’re targeting a local audience. Even if you’re not though, it probably wouldn’t hurt to get it for branding purposes.
Bite the bullet and get all three domains now; .com, .net, and .org.
When I originally got mrwes.net and mrwes.com I figured nobody else would want the .org so I didn’t get it. A few years later when I went back to get it, someone else had taken it.
Guess it all depends on who you want to reach and what your blog/website represents.
I think it´s interesting to have both, in my case a .com and .com.br; The .com.br domains are so common here in brazil that some people naturally ad the .br to my work email address where there isn’t.
My main concern is: How to go about it?
Do you just redirect to one of them? Does it get indexed in both search options if you just redirect?
Do you publish on both to be able to get on the local and global searches? If you do that, isn´t there a problem with the duplication of content?
I´d love for someone to explain me these issues, as I have debated a lot over this lately with friends.
Just for an example on the debate:
I use both for my company´s site (mixingbar.com or mixingbar.com.br) but am really considering just using the .br for a portuguese blog soon to be launched (apreciecommoderacao.com.br), just because of miss indexing/penalties.
I´d love for the blog to be searchable on google international as there are many Portuguese speakers all over the world and a lot of my blogroll will be English speakers, but the local advantages are tempting.
Thank you for your help!
I think it´s interesting to have both, in my case a .com and .com.br; The .com.br domains are so common here in brazil that some people naturally ad the .br to my work email address where there isn’t.
My main concern is: How to go about it?
Do you just redirect to one of them? Does it get indexed in both search options if you just redirect?
Do you publish on both to be able to get on the local and global searches? If you do that, isn´t there a problem with the duplication of content?
I´d love for someone to explain me these issues, as I have debated a lot over this lately with friends.
Just for an example on the debate:
I use both for my company´s site (mixingbar.com or mixingbar.com.br) but am really considering just using the .br for a portuguese blog soon to be launched (apreciecommoderacao.com.br), just because of miss indexing/penalties.
I´d love for the blog to be searchable on google international as there are many Portuguese speakers all over the world and a lot of my blogroll will be English speakers, but the local advantages are tempting.
Thank you for any insights!
I have a gadget blog (http://gadgeteer.ca) on a Canadian .ca domain name. My blog is new and does not have many back links. But I am able to rank fairly well in Google.ca searches. I rank really well when you click the option “Show Pages from Canada”.
The popularity of a local domain name differs from country to country. In Canada, “.ca” is hugely popular and this TLD is growing very fast. This is not the case in every country.
It depends on your site. If you site is local, I would use a localized domain. If you site is mostly online, you a .com domain.
I use .org for my blog. On other Websites i’m using .de (Germany).
I don’t use a local just .com all the way. However for a personal family website we have, we do use .net just makes it a little more aloof.
I think starting out your best bet is with the better recognized TLD’s however, I think this is more of a problem for the regular business card entrepreneur than the blogger. Most all of my networking happens online if I can get a front page rank for Google then I’m pretty sure I’ll get traffic. My main reason for getting a more international domain was our relatively low internet audience in South Africa, there’s no real advantage to me to rank highly here if it’ll be at the expense of international traffic.
I have a .co.uk address for my blog, but as my blog has grown I have noticed I am getting higher up the uk search rankings, but lower on google.com.
If I bought the .com address and just re-directed traffic would this increase my google.com ranking or do I have to put all my content on the .com site?
There are a lot of tips and guide available to help you in searching for the best domain name of your website. Url Redirection
That’s the advice we give our customers at iWantMyName as well. Get a generic domain such as .COM / .NET / .ORG / .INFO for targeting the international market and a country code domain for local audiences. For personal blogs there are also the .NAME & .ME domain extensions.
However, you can use country code extensions for the international market too without having disadvantages regarding search engine traffic. Google’s Webmaster Tools offer the possibility to specify the target market for your domain so a .TV / .FM or .IO domain can still have a high ranking.
Another factor for search engine localisation is where your server is physically located. If you want to appeal to the US market, make sure you have a US server along with a .com name.
That’s true that ranking .com is quite difficult than other local search engine.
So if depends on the market research and people whom should be targeted
Thanks for sharing this useful information..
Get .com. The only reason to get any others is brand protection.
@Sharice
The only .us websites I’ve ever seen have been state government sites which tend to have urls of the form http://www.[sitename].state.[state abbreviation].us
It may say something about my relationship with state governments that the one that when I type “state.” into the address bar, the sites that come up are things like http://www.dmv.state.pa.us that want to take my money.
I made this mistake with http://CraftBlog.com.au, I had very much intended for it to be an Australian focused blog, but now (almost 18 months after its conception) it doesn’t seem to have taken off with the Australian audience, and yet has awesome worldwide stats, something like 70% of my visits are from the states and I’m now wishing I’d have bought a domain that was available for sale on the .com and the .au as people regularly link to just the .com without thinking about it.
Does anyone have have any tips for pulling in more of a local audience? I feature Australian blogs, highlight sales and bargains at Australian craft stores, but I’m not having much luck so far.
Given that my main site is locally based, that’s my target, a .ca made sense. However, because much of the material is spcific, I rank high enough on international searches to get an almost bizarre amount of global traffic.
However, I will admit that when I get my professional site launched, it will be a .com mostly because of the recognition. No one thinks twice about .com but .ca or even.net give people some pause.
as for me i would still prefer the .com domain as i target the blogal market but maybe soon i’ll put up a local site and i will catch the localized domain there
As you’ve also suggested your preference, my choice is also a “.COM”
Going for a local domain is my last option if I don’t have any other options. It is very hard to make people remember the local domain name, cause they tend to forget the other letter after the “.COM”
The answer to this question relies so much on what you are doing with your domain. If you intend on selling physical goods then the localised domain can portray a higher level of trust than the .com version. Some localised domains need to have a business registration matching the name and as this costs more serious money, there doesn’t seem to be the level of ‘spammy’ sites that there are in the .com space.
If you grab both then you’re set for whatever you want to do with your site in the future.
I’d transfer the site to the .com
Then I would buy the .com domain and 301’d the .au to the .com.
I think that would have solved it..
My friend use .de then he get his game website rank very well in German google.
Better use domain .com i thinks, exclude if we want just to market locally.
Dara
That’s true that ranking .com is quite difficult than other local search engine.
Its really great info.
That’s true that ranking .com is quite difficult than other local search engine.
I’ve found the same thing. Localized domain names get a good traffic boost in the local version of Google.
Just a quick question, I know when naming your AD organization they recommend using .local rather then a top level domain. Why is that? I know using .local is non-routeable which protects the domain, could someone explain to me the whole concept of using a .local domain name?
Thanks!
Localized domains are useful if the website is made for local people.
That said means for example a german domain is wonderful for a german website. It’s even better than a .com-domain, cause people remember the .de quite well. It gives you a home-feeling.
And because the site is in german it’s perfect for the german readers and bad for everyone who don’t speaks german.
I call this totally localized.
I think you should always go for a .com tld if you can afford it. If you search in a localised version of google then you see a range of tld usually now which in the past you didn’t always get. So it is up to you what is available when you are buying your url
I use a .com and i have trouble getting it ranked high on google.at; After reading this post… Maybe, I should switch…
I use both – and redirect the .au
I agree that if you plan on a wider audience, you need to go with a .com, .net or even a .org (as appropriate). But if you do have services/products with local appeal … then you should probably set up using a localized domain as well.
My consulting business is primarily with US and Canadian clients … but my publishing business has sold my books and info products internationally with buyers from 37 countries. I believe having the .com helped with reaching people in those regions that might not have found me through organic search if I would have used a .US domain.
Your article makes a lot of sense…What about NON english speaking site that want to be ranked on local google ?
I mean it s better italia.com or italia.it for a website in Italian language?
for sure the domain should be in italian, but are we sure google.it ranks the .it higher than .com ? ( to me and Italian audiece in general, a .com is more appealing than a .it site so i ve got mainly .com sites, unless the domain name is in English)
regards,
m