How important is it to have a gTLD as opposed to a ccTLD in search engine rankings? I am sure that there is some importance but how much? If I have say, cheatcodes.de, would I be able to get on the top page of Google.com ? Thanks
I think that using cheatcodes.de would help you for searches in google.de, but won't affect your ranking in google.com
I think I may be wandering from your point a bit here but from an seo pov I think the main diff of any country extension may be that there is a preference for the se's in that country to pic the domain up. E.g If I was selling property in Germany to a predominantly UK market it would be worth buying the domain german-property.co.uk as well as ....com because some automated engines will list a .co.uk quicker than a .com (IMH - and probably old-fashioned O). The eu extension is now available of course and I maybe I should have leapt upon the eu extension of my main .com domain. All I know is that if the one who snapped the eu version of my .com is willing to put the work into his new aquisition that I did he is welcome to the traffic. If not he can bloody whistle if he thinks I am going to pay some silly price to grab it back from him. The dom extension matters so much less than your committment to work hard to get whatever the site is into the spotlight.
"I think that using cheatcodes.de would help you for searches in google.de, but won't affect your ranking in google.com". - hooperman My 2-cent mind tells me otherwise. I have a number of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese domains. They are getting high ranking with German, Chinese, Russian, etc. search engines. www.cheatcodes.de is not search-engines-friendly. www.cheat-codes.de is. If correctly done, www.cheat-codes.de would be able to beat www.cheatcc.com (the current leader) for the search phrase of "cheat codes". Go to http://www.bestwebsites.com.my and get a free copy "AdSense SEO Made Easy" ebook by Jonathan Leger.
Talking about SEO, my http://shiloh-nouvel-jolie-pitt.bestwebsites.com.my is getting huge traffic while "shiloh" is still hot. I'm not sure whether search engines love "shiloh-nouvel-jolie-pitt" or that bestwebsites.com.my has a PR5 homepage. A lot of exclusive Shiloh photos there.
great. thanks for all of your answers. I just bought a bunch of high overture domain which I want to SEO and develope. paydayloan.at - 1.8mil ovt cheatcodes.at careertraining.at - 1.8mil educationonline.at paidsurvey.at and a few others the - would add to SEO value but no - adds to market value.