Local domain names will rank higher in Google search results, stated Google Search Engine Analyst Gary Illyes in a podcast interview on July 18. Responding to a question about whether a .kr domain or a .com domain would do better in Korean search results, Illyes stated that the search engine tends to promote local content to its users. “That’s not to say that a .com domain can’t do well; it can, but generally, .kr has a little more benefit, albeit not too much,” he added.
A .kr domain is specific to South Korea. Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) is the term for domain names that are specific to countries. Examples would be .de for Germany or .in for India. Google treats most ccTLDs as country-specific for ranking purposes. However, Google considers some, like .io, as generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) because users widely adopt them outside their original geographic context.
However, Ilyes also stated that if the language of a site matches the user’s query language, that has more impact than the domain name itself.
Why This Matters
Google’s search ranking algorithms have a dramatic impact on the visibility and accessibility of information on the internet, with a tremendous impact on online businesses. However, the rules that govern search engine optimization are often opaque. For instance, a significant leak of Google documents exposed the company’s key considerations for ranking websites in its search engine in May 2024. The documents reveal that the frequency of clicks a link receives on a search engine results page and the duration a user spends on that page influence the search rankings.
This also contradicted the previous statements by the company that denied the collection of click data. The leak also indicated that Google created sitelinks based on the most clicked URLs in Chrome and potentially maintains whitelists for certain authorities and sites.
Earlier this year, encrypted email service Tuta Mail filed a complaint against the search engine giant when the service’s website stopped showing up near the top for search queries about secure emails.
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