I am currently buiding a US site using a non-US TLD. Am I at a disadvantage by doing so? For instance, the domain is something similar to www.fixx.in. Would the domain www.fixxin.com be better for SEO (or anything .com for that matter)?
Yeah, I figured there would be an advantage to having a .com domain. For a new site that isn't quite established yet, do you think it would be better to move to a .com domain? All things equal (same site, same keywords, same everything), how much difference do you think it would be (in terms of ranking)?
If your main market is the us - then yes use .com. Difference depends on keywords, content and competition among other things..
In my experience, using a country-specific domain like .co.uk or .in is a big mistake if trying to do well either globally or in the US. Go for a .com/ .net/ .org if you want to do well in the US. For my very first site I used a .co.uk. I had to start all over again one year later with a .com in order to do well in the US. Apart from the problem of getting Google to give me good SERPs positions with a .co.uk, US searches are much less likely to click on any non .com site they find in their search results.