Thread: Local Niches and Domain Names

Originally Posted by Loko

The extension does matter when you're talking about geo targeting which is what the topic starter is asking.

If you use the .com, then you will have to set manual geotargeting. When using a ccTLD Google uses that to determine the targeting region. I am not sure if that counts for all ccTLDs however.

Backlinks from locally hosted sites will help a lot too.

I wasn't aware of this I thought that he just asked what ext. he should use...sorry for spreading disinformation

If you have a .com domain, you will need to make a lot of work in geo targeting, because google sees this as an international domain. Unlike other websites such as .au , .us , .ph and many more can easily rank high geo search.

The tld and language can help with geo targeting a website to a specific country. Geo targeting a domain in the US to a specific city or are the best is to include an address on the homepage and include the site in yellow pages and the local directories.

Godaddy is also charging almost $20 for the renewal of a .us That's a lot of money.

I have personally never seen a .us domain perform well.

Your best bet is always to find an exact match domain with and extension that does receive the exact match bonus. That rules out .us and .info for the USA market.