One of the latest post at the official Google Webmaster Central Blog hints that the country-code of domains along with the server location affects the SERPs of a website:
Use regional and geographical domains in line with their purpose.
First, a sidenote for the Western webmasters: some Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia have so-called regional or geographical domains. Imagine that all the states in the U.S. had their official second level domain and if you wanted to open your webshop delivering to Kentucky, you could do it cheap or for free on eg. ky.us. This could help Google serve geographically relevant search results. In case you wish to sell organic soaps to people in Szczecin, do open your webshop on szczecin.pl. If you are from Kalmykia and would like to show the world the beauty of your area, go ahead and set up your Kalmyki travel site on kalmykia.ru. If you like a region, support it by hosting your site on the related regional or geographical domain. Be aware that webspam on these regional domains violates the correct use of them and prevents the development of your country’s web culture.
So, if all else being equal, a .com.ph will rank higher than the .com when the user/searcher is in the Philippines.
Hi there, just wandered by. I have a Kentucky 4g website. Amazing the amount of information on the web. Not quite what I was looking for, but good site. Have a good day.
Well how about the .TV or .WS, .ME?
Lastly I wonder why more people prefer .com.ph than .PH?
well it depends upon many factors, but one must give prefrence to hosting factors. use google webmaster tools for better geo targeting
well, the cctlds reallly affect search in google. google is great in determing the domain extension, and it also takes care of the hosting location. The location of hosting affects the search engine placement in a location, as the domain does. For example the website http://www.bccitv.in hosted on indian servers will determine its rank, in the smae way as a dot .ca or dot .us website will be ranked in germany and usa, if they are using the servers of their respective countries
well dot com’s are no longer the preffered domains. with the country specific domains also hovering over the web, they are also becomming equally important. http://www.bbservice.in
well the ccltds are not that hot, it is dot com that carries its rewards, and it helps to have a dot com, because people first go for the dot com, and then they press anything further. http://www.ledbazar.com
well do not go for the cctld. they do not matter much. google ignores them through and through.
go for the dot com. that is where the traffic is
http://www.domaincile.com
well google actually prefers dot com in ranking than the cctlds, and it is a must for everybody to have a dot com, even if you have a country level extension. http://searchbox.mobi
Yep its true. I’m not really sure why the SEs are not announcing it officially, but various domain registrars have been giving tips about ccTLDs and gTLDs when it comes to SEO.
I myself has been thinking for more than 3 years already if I will get a .ph ccTLD just so to get more PH hits (my target audience) than non-PH, but as Mae said, ccTLDs are really expensive.
I will however make sure I will get the important domains once .ASIA is available ;) Since my and our real target is the Asian countries. It’s time Asians take over the Internet, enough of the Western world :p
Oh, .ASIA covers the Oceania region ^_^
It will be available very soon. Watch out for .ASIA!!
That’s good news, now it’s officially announced. Although since last year, I or We have been experiencing good traffic w/ less off-page optimization/seo., specially for users using google.com.ph
Using .com.ph domain extensions is really tempting… the only problem is the price of having one :(