During the SEO Office Hours podcast, Google’s Gary Illyes addressed whether sites using country-level domain names receive a ranking preference. He explained how these domains compare to non-country domain names regarding SEO.

ccTLDs: Country Code Top Level Domains

CcTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains) are domain names specific to countries. These domains target users in specific countries rather than specific languages. Examples include .de for Germany, .in for India, and .kr for Korea. Unlike regular Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), which are not tied to any country, ccTLDs focus on a particular geographical area. However, some ccTLDs are treated by Google for ranking purposes as if they were regular gTLDs. A famous example is .io, which technically pertains to the British Indian Ocean Territory is treated like a gTLD due to its widespread use.

Ranking Boosts For ccTLDs

The question that Gary Illyes addressed was about the ranking boost given to ccTLDs.

This is the question:

“When a Korean person searches Google in Korean, does a com.kr or a .com domain do better?”

Gary Illyes answered:

“Good question. Generally speaking, local domain names, in your case .kr, tend to do better because Google Search promotes content local to the user.”

Many people aim to rank better in a specific country, and one of the best practices for achieving this is registering a domain name specific to that country. Google gives such domains a ranking boost over sites that are not explicitly targeting a particular country.

Gary continued his explanation by detailing the ranking advantage of a ccTLD over a generic top-level domain (gTLD), like .com, .net, and so on:

“That’s not to say that a .com domain can’t do well—it can—but generally, .kr has a little more benefit, albeit not too much.”

Targeting Country Versus Targeting Language

Lastly, Gary Illyes pointed out that targeting a user’s language tends to have a more significant impact than the domain name itself.

He explained:

“If the language of a site matches the user’s query language, that probably has more impact than the domain name itself.” Targeting a language allows a site to reach users regardless of location, whereas a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) explicitly targets a particular country.

Gary didn’t mention that using a ccTLD can also build user trust among searchers from the targeted country. For example, users in Korea might perceive a .kr domain as being more relevant to them, while those in Australia might prefer a .au domain. This perception could lead to a higher likelihood of users clicking on search results with country-specific ccTLDs.

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