SEO Gods? - Are .COM/NET/ORG still better than .FR or CO.UK When...

Hi All you SEO Gods out there,

SEO Gods - Are .COM ORGS NETS still better than .FR or CO.UK when you are ONLY targeting those specific countries?

I have never see this question asked, any one with experience or an opinion on this?

Much appreciated/Thx in advance,

Dave

Anybody got a comment or is also curious about this?

Thx in advance,

Dave

Yes, .com is better for SEO, followed by .net, then .org. Not sure where .co.uk falls because I'm in the US so I don't see it that often.

dont know about .fr but most of my domains r .co.uk and one of them is on front page of google on 4th spot for my main keyword so its doin better then alot of .coms

I just got myself a .fr ranked first for a keyword I was targeting. Obviously this is for google.fr only. For local websites the matching extention (what's the correct term?) is usually very good.

If I was targeting UK, I would use a co.uk domain.

Totally agree with Mike. I just said this earlier in another thread.

If you are geo-targeting your audience ie niche+location (in this case france) then yes, I believe the domain extension (in your case .fr) plays a part in the search engine rankings.

No means a SEO expert just giving my thoughts from what I have seen going about here, and all the talk about google wanting to give better results.

If you are GEO targeting then specific extension can help you more then normal extension... Although it's not only factor for geo targeting but it helps...

Let's say you wanna rank for a french kw on Google.fr: your best option is to go for a .fr
Google.co.uk? Go for a .co.uk

If you give a read to the Google webmaster support, this is explained withouth much secrecy (sorry but I can't find the exact quote/page/URL)

Moreover, to benefit the most from geolocation, if you have .fr domain for a french audience willing to rank on google.fr, you should host it on a french server as well.

So to follow Google's guidelines you should always host the site on a server in the country you are targetting.

Said so, I've never done any of this but I've had good risults in terms of rankings nonetheless:
My domains are .com or .org or .net, registered with a US registrant, hosted on a US server yet I'm ranking pretty well on google.european country for the kws i'm targetting (i just don't like hosting anything in my country cause it's more expensive and less reliable than i.e. doing it on US soil)

So, my buttom line is:

in my experience, "geotargeting" is not a crucial factor. But if you can benefit from it, just do it.