Country-specific domains for ambitious project from scratch

zeven

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Hi guys,

Mod: Please move this thread if it does not fit in this sub-forum!

I am working on a new project with a great budget and the will to do everything right in terms of localization from the start (finally). I am looking at the domain strategies and the customer wants to have country-specific TLD's which I think is the best way to go, but I am struggling at one point. Let's call the client SoftCorner. Well, SoftCorner are selling sofa's and investing in local stores in 6 different markets and have an online marketing budget and ambition to penetrate each and every one of these markets. They are currently: US, UK, Fr, Dk, Jp, Kr. Besides aiming for these markets, SoftCorner also wants to have a global shop where potential customers outside of the target markets can buy their sofas. So far, SoftCorner has aquired the following domains:

softcorner.com
softcorner.us
softcorner.co.uk
softcorner.fr
softcorner.dk
softcorner.jp
softcorner.kr

So far so good. The problem and the reason for this thread is: How do I incoporate a global shop into this strategy, meanwhile optimizing for the US? I see three different scenarios:

#1
softcorner.com (landningpage with "flags" for user to go to specific markets)
us.softcorner.com (the US webshop)
softcorner.com/global (the global webshop)
softcorner.co.uk
softcorner.fr
softcorner.dk
softcorner.jp
softcorner.kr

#2
softcorner.com (global shop)
softcorner.us (american shop)
softcorner.co.uk
softcorner.fr
softcorner.dk
softcorner.jp
softcorner.kr

#3
softcorner.com (landingpage w flags)
softcorner.com/global (global shop)
softcorner.com/us (american shop)
softcorner.co.uk
softcorner.fr
softcorner.dk
softcorner.jp
softcorner.kr

What is the best solution? I know that the easiest solution (and maybe best for SEO purposes) would be to use .us for the american shop and .com for the global shop - but .us is still associated with spam so I'm not sure that's the way to go.

What is your opinion? Any other solution to this problem?

Best,
Z
 
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