I am planning to open a store in Germany, I already have the .de domain which will be serving content in the German language. I also want to target nearby countries with the English language, I will eventually move to the ccTLD's but now I would like to keep the website in 2 languages i.e. English and German. What is the best option here? Should I serve .de/en or from .eu. I want to target whole Europe from the English language website. P.S. .com domain is not available.
.de/en sends the signal that you aren't targeting the whole of Europe. If it must be a ccTLD then I guess .eu is your only geo-targeted option. DiMaster's advice makes sense as well to use a standard TLD.
http://www.go.co/about/faq/ It means company and without a country code it is global like .com. Are you global or European? Do you have any plan to be global if possible in the future? The question is what should you pick so you wont have to change it later. Changing it later is a huge pain in the ass. Pick the one you plan to live with and stick to it. The argument .this has advantage over .that is silly. Pick the one that addresses your business and target market best.
Will .de/en work for the rest of the Europe? I am more concerned about how will it be perceived by rest of the European countries. Will they trust .de/en?
If we keep SEO in mind, I will have advantage if I focus my SEO efforts only on 1 domain i.e. .de/en. I mentioned in my previous comment that I am more concerned about the perception of the brand when people come across it. Suppose you are living in France, which site will you prefer to buy from and which will look more promising, .de/en or .eu?
Definitely not any .eu. If it's a german store, either go with .de or .com. Don't go with anything else than top TLDs or the country TLD.
I am already having .de domain which will serve the German language. But along with German market, I want to have a store in English language as well which will be for the rest of the Europe. I have mentioned in the question that .com is already taken and the guy who has it is asking for a million dollars. There is no way I am getting .com.
I totally agree with you. Right now, more than 80% of my market will be in Germany. 20% will be from rest of the Europe. I already have .de, If the market expands well in other countries, I will start it on respective ccTLDs. But as of right now, I will be only dealing in Europe. What do you think about the idea of having English content on both .eu and .de/en. I will apply hreflang tag on both. Is it a crazy idea or worth a try?
Be sure to canonical everything to the original URL. Another option is run two businesses... Nothing wrong with running GermanFutons.de AND EuropeanFutons.eu as long as they are real businesses with different offers and content. Google's main requirement, and I know this through my AdWords reps, is that the product mix has to be different.
Worry less about your TLD and more about your SEO and marketing. It doesn't really matter in the end.
If I focus on 1 domain with .de/en for my SEO and Marketing rather than 2, I can get better results. Selection of domain is related to SEO and I am worried about that.
Target is 80% Germany which will be served by .de site and 20+ is other parts of Europe which will be served the English content.
