I was just wondering if someone had the answer to this question. If I am targeting a German audience for example, will google.de rank my domain higher if it is emd.de or emd.com? This is considering equal SEO has been done.
A localised TLD will help, but it's only one ranking factor out of 100's. For example, if you don't have an EMD.de, then you could use EMD.com, and either host the site in the target country (Germany) or set the target location in Google Webmaster Tools.