Local Domains Choose wisely!

A few years ago it did not matter whether you had a .com type domain or an extension specific to your own country.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was probably considered quite 'cool' to have a .com domain. It gave the impression that you were serious about your business.

Then Google decided to go local and now most local country searches would probably go through the version of Google specific to your own country.

When Google launched my country's local version of Google (www.google.co.za) I investigated the matter of having a .com domain versus having .co.za domain and how that would affect where you would show up in the SERPS (search engine result pages).

I searched through various forums (on Google itself) as well as other big forums like WebHostingTalk. I also did my own tests. The consensus seems to be that you will only show up in the regional search engine of Google (and I specifically refer here to using your country's local Google to LIMIT results to your country's results) if
1) your domain extension (e.g. .co.za or .co.uk etc.) corresponds with the region, or
2) your IP of the hosting server falls in the corresponding geographic region or

The implication of this is that if your domain ends in a .com AND you happen to be hosted physically on an internationally located server, your .com domain will NOT show up in www.google.co.za when the search is limited to South African results.
(How do you know whether your domain is hosted locally or off-shore? There are technical ways to find out but the easiest would be to ask your hosting service provider!)

Now you might argue that people might not use the 'Limit to results' option - that they might search world wide. That might be so, but here is another curveball: Even when presenting world wide results, the regional Google search engine gives a preference to local domains.

So here is the bottom line:
- When you have a .com website, make sure that the physical servers that they are hosted on are located locally in your own country
- If you have the option (and your business is aimed at your local market), always register a local domain for your business website.

If you currently have a .com domain that is located off-shore, you will NEVER show up in the local results of Google (if you specifically limit the searches to your own country's results only), and even when people do not limit the results to your country only, you will compete against millions of other .com domains, while your local competitor with a local domain extension will sneak right up to the top results in Google because Google gives more preference to those domains when using its local version of the search engine.

What can you do about this? I would suggest that you register a local domain and start migrating your webiste over to the new domain. You can leave your business cards and company brochures with your .com extension until you run out and have to print new ones in any case - all you need to do is ask your webhosting provider to put a forward on your .com domain to your local domain name.

It will take a while for the transition to show up in all relevant search engines and to be frank, this might not be a painless process! But you need to decide how important it is to you to show up on the first pages of the local search engines - there are other ways of marketing your website too. But if you think that you might be losing out on targeted traffic, I suggest you bite the bullet and go for it - rather sooner than later!

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