Personally i do not have any .US domain, i have couple of questions regarding .us domains.. 1> Do i need to be resident of US to buy .us domains? 2> Do they rank well in SERPS? Any experience?
Okay, let me answer your questions. 1> Do i need to be resident of US to buy .us domains? You can register .US if you are not a US resident. 2> Do they rank well in SERPS? Any experience? There is no difference comparing with other TLDs.
Well, semantically you can go through the button clicks of registering a .US domain if you are not a US resident, however it is against the terms of the TLD and you could lose it in that case. .US names are supposed to be registered by US residents only.
Is there any precedent of people being forced to surrender their domain names... for this particular reason? Regards, RightMan
You can't register a .us unless you live in USA or you have a registered business there. Most of domain registrars don't let you register .us name unless you have a US address. I think Google take is as a ccTLD so .us rank well in Google.com rather than other local search. One famous us. domain rank wel for all its related keywords is imageshack.us. I'm sure there are other domains out there too.
I think at the very least you would want content targeted at the US market. Last time I checked godaddy let you register them if your address is not USA.
Some time back I registered a .US domain not being a resident of the united states. Having done so and having it available to me I stumbled onto the terms stating that only US residents are allowed to register .us. Finding it curious how there was no notifications or checks being made through the order system I contacted the the registrar. They gave me the option to drop the name if I wanted to and felt I did not fit in the terms requirements of the .us extension, and get a refund of the money. That is also what I choose, I dropped it within the five day period and the registrar allowed me a refund. I do not know of all registrars, but this one in particular did not seem to care that much where one was located upon registration of .us domain. However the terms of registration, when encountered were very clear.
The issue is whether you really want to risk building up a website where you know you are not eligible to own the URL. Why take the chance when there must be other choices available?
I guess... people are forced to take this risk, as it is one of the easiest option available to get good results... when concentrating on serving just the US market. Regards, RightMan
Well, folks, I am completely confused by your words in the end. So, only US residents can register dot US domain names, right? appreciate a quick answer.
To summarize it in short... any one can easily register a .us name but there would always be risk associated with it of loosing it... as and when your identity gets known to the regulators. Regards, RightMan
Even if they might not necessarily check if you are from US when the name is ordered. The terms associated with ordering the name require you to be a US citizen, or own a business located physically in the USA (not entirely sure exactly how they phrased that, point is there was an "exception" but which does not apply to most).