So as I understand it, google basically (but not quite) treats ccTLDs almost as a .com, but only in that region. So for instance, assuming the same level of development, backlinks, etc, buywidgets.co.uk is just as strong (or nearly as strong) as buywidgets.com in the uk. Buywidgets.au is as strong as buywidgets.com in Australia. Buywidgets.us is nearly as strong as Buywidgets.com in the United States. So, does google penalize for duplication across ccTLDs? Like let's say that widgetblog.com is already taken, however widgetblog.us, widgetblog.co.uk, and widgetblog.au are all available. Could I just buy the the .us, .co.uk, and .au domains and develop the same site all three of them, and duplicate my new articles on all three of them, and presumably rank highly in the US with the .us, the UK with the co.uk, and Australia in .au? Or would google punish me for having the same site duplicated 3 times, even though it's across three separate regions?
The answer is simple - YES. I do not get it. If you were intend to develop website for each country specifically by using different domain tld as a key, why don't you provide each of them with a completely unique contents instead of use same content across of them. If you are asking this then you should know in your mind already about the negative side effect by use same content over and over again, aren't you?
I believe heavily that exact match domain names give a huge SEO boost. Of course, most good exact match TLD domain names are taken. My content will not necessarily be different for each country (it's about a videogame in this case, which is the same across all countries that speak the same language, which is all I'm targeting). Meanwhile, ccTLDs have basically the same SEO rank as TLDs in their country. So, let's say a game is called "Super Awesome Game" and superawesomegame.com/net/org are already taken, if I were to register superawesomegame.us and superawesomegame.co.uk they would have the same content (it's the same game for both of them), but each would have the exact match benefit in their country. It does sound like google will punish me for this though, so it sounds like I'll either need to focus on one ccTLD, or try to rank highly on google without an exact match domain name (which thusfar has been a losing battle in this particular case).