The localization of a site (.com) by google is based on the localization of the server. This determines the country pages where the site will be listed in the search results. Would google localize a site in each country if the site is physically hosted on servers in different countries ?
In Google Sitemaps you can specify a particular geographical location relevant to your site. This option only seems to only apply to non country specific domain extensions. A .com domain hosted in several different locations but with the same content would get hit for being duplicate content and would likely fair very badly.
Thanks The localization tool from google webmaster is not always possible. With regards to a multilingual site with a subdirectory for each language, the tool does not accept subdirectory URL's with extensions. On the other hand, the homepage may be put only in one country. More generally, the tool is not as efficient as physical hosting. With regards to "duplicate content", I don't think there is a problem since there is only one site (not different URL's with same content). Would a site hosted in different countries be listed in the results of each of those countries (result pages specific to the countries)? Thanks for your help.