Rank globally with a ccTLD

Hello guys! We are using a ccTLD (.de) right now for our money page. Some days ago we relaunched our homepage in english as well to rank globally. Is there a chance to rank in the international serps with a .de domain or should we switch to a .com domain?
What do you think how much damage our current rankings in de google will get through a domain switch (301 redirect from old to new)?

Do you have any suggestions for such a switch with a small as possible ranking decrease?

I have doubts about .de working globally. I hope I am wrong but when I test search terms like "international banking" which SHOULD have lots of great content from many different countries ALL of the listings I found on the first 10 pages were .com, .net, .org, and .edu ... I gave up at page 10 for trying to find a ccTLD. There are international banks all over the results but they all have .com.

I did find ccTLDs in "international cruise lines" but they didn't rank very well, but their existence at least gives me hope that their is room for exceptions.

but even a search like "international airport" didn't put a ccTLD into the mix until page 5.

But... A search for "mexico airport" finally had a ccTLD #1 but short of searching the country name there appears to be some strong bias against ccTLDs at play for global searches.

My advice... run two sites... one for regional/local and the other for global... just make sure the content on each is unique.

yes, thats what I already monitored. On the other hand I found some co.uk tlds in the international serp. So i was not sure. But I think you're right and ranking with a cctld in international serps is to hard to try.

I noticed that many competitors use different domains for their languages. But link-building for two domains would be very exhausting. Its hard enough to rank with our current domain in .de serps. To launch a new domain without any da/pa is gonna interrupt me. But you think thats better then 301 redirect from old domain to new because you think we will lost much of our rankings?

Maybemad said:

yes, thats what I already monitored. On the other hand I found some co.uk tlds in the international serp. So i was not sure. But I think you're right and ranking with a cctld in international serps is to hard to try.

I noticed that many competitors use different domains for their languages. But link-building for two domains would be very exhausting. Its hard enough to rank with our current domain in .de serps. To launch a new domain without any da/pa is gonna interrupt me. But you think thats better then 301 redirect from old domain to new because you think we will lost much of our rankings?

Click to expand...

My fear would be that you might harm regional sales while attempting to get international sales. By having two unique websites you don't risk one by going after the other. Now if you have "no sales" then you have the luxury of just making the switch to a global domain with regional directories because you have nothing at risk to lose. But I hope you have LOTS and LOTS to lose! because that is a good problem to have.

And you can always redirect one to the other later when you know what you are dealing with.

Maybemad said:

switch to a .com domain?

Click to expand...

run second site in gTLD for international serp

samcram said:

run second site in gTLD for international serp

Click to expand...

okay, thank you. Have you any experiences in such a case?