An SEO professional inquired in a hangout about whether or not the country code top level domain is a ranking factor when it comes to local businesses on Google search.
John answered that yes, he would say that they do use the country code top level domain when it comes to geo-targeting.
He provided a specific example: if somebody is looking for something using a local query, and Google also knows a certain website is focused on that local market, then they will attempt to promote that specific website in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
They will use the top level domain, especially if it’s a country code top level domain. If said domain is not a country code top level domain, then they will check Google Search Console to make sure that there’s not a setting there already that specifies this top level domain.
John recommends making sure that you enable this setting if you have a country code top level domain.
He also provided another example:if someone is searching for something like a washing machine repair manual, this is more of a general query and would be less locally-focused. However, if someone is looking for something such as washing machine repair, then the user intent is most likely local.
He concluded that when you’re looking at your overall website, consider whether or not you need to start targeting a broader range of users who may be searching more globally, or target those searching more locally.
This happens at approximately the 09:25 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John 9:19
Is the country code top level domain a ranking factor, especially for local businesses?
John 9:25
I would say kind of on a very rough basis, I would say yes, we do use the country code top level domain as a factor in geo-targeting. So in particular, if someone is looking for something local, and we know that the website is focused on that local market, then we will try to promote that website in the search results.
And we use the top level domain, if it’s a country code top level domain. And if it’s not a country code top level domain, then we’ll check the Search Console settings to see if there’s any country specified there, for international targeting. And if you have a generic top level domain like that, then setting that in Search Console, if you want to focus on a specific country, definitely makes sense. And like I mentioned, we use this for queries where we can tell that the user is looking for something local.
So an example that I’ve used in the past is, if you’re searching for something like washing machine repair manual, then you probably are not looking for something local. Whereas if you’re just searching for washing machine repair, then you probably are looking for something local. So those are kind of the different scenarios there. And from that point of view, it’s something where sometimes it makes sense to look at your website and think about “Well, do I need to target these local queries, or am I more looking for something kind of like to cover the broad range of people who are searching globally”? And both of those can be useful strategies, it’s more a matter of you picking a strategy and then executing on that.
