Should there be a Google USA?

[PaulH]

Often wondered why Americans put up with intentional results. This issue forced me to use geo targeting, despite having a .co.uk on a UK IP i was getting hoards of emails off Americans saying they can’t call our phone number(the nice big British flag, H1 tag saying "UK only", and FAQ was too subtle). On the plus side i now sell them affiliate tat. Maybe this is why Google is more popular in Europe.

[bragadocchio]

.us has only been around a couple of years I think, but historically I guess .com was meant to be commercial and since the US and the UK were probably the two main takers at the time it didn't seem an issue.

I don't think the age or timing has too much to do with the use of .com versus .us. The .us tld has been around since sometime in 1988. The .com was from around three years earlier in 1985, as was the .uk.

I think that you are right that when given the option between a .com and a .us, most Americans who created sites with a .com did do so with the understanding that a .com address was for a commercial site. The message about whether the scope of the site being regional or global probably didn't enter into the picture much.

There was no sense of entitlement involved. It was, and often is, presented in the US as the preferred address for someone engaged in commercial activities. And the commercial aspect of a .com even gets clouded sometimes in the way that people are presented with options for chosing a tld in the US. The way that Internic presents the cctld's makes them look like a less desireable option.

I came across a surgeon's site in the US recently with the country code for Moldova. I don't think that there was any intention of catering to the people of Moldova. Rather, the person choosing the name may have liked the look of the .md at the end of the web address.

[ephricon]

Originally Posted by Jeff Martin

Move to Google.us? Not likely. We Americans think the world needs to conform to us... for Pete's sake we refuse to be on the metric system.

Some questions:

• What's the metric system?
• For that matter, what is this "Canada" thing everyone keeps talking about?
• The internet is international? Is that why you guys sometimes spell color (colour) and optimization (optimisation) wrong?

Hahaha, but seriously that's the point. The average American internet user equates .com with website. As for all the other domains, they are clearly inferior.

I, as an American living in the US who is completely ignorant and not in any way knowledgable of any culture other than my own, will tell you that when I see any website with a domain other than .com my initial assumption is that the site probably couldn't get the .com extension and "had to settle" for the alternative. The only exceptions here in my mind are .org, .edu, .gov and possibly .mil.

A while back I wanted to register my name as a domain. www.myname.com was already taken. I was crushed. I settled on www.myname.net and never once gave a thought about www.myname.us as to me, a typical American, that just looked tacky and inferior.

If when I searched I found that 75% of the .com sites I'm finding are based in another country than maybe I'd care - but that's not the case. I'd say maybe 3% of the time, if that, do I happen upon a .com that is not US-based without expecting that to be the case.

To me its a nice idea, but they missed the boat. Even if you take Ian's suggestion about not hurting any .com sites and using both them and .us in Google.us - I don't think it would really matter. The five people per day who used Google.us over Google.com probably wouldn't notice much of a swing in their results, as 90% of the sites I currently get back are .com (and not something like .co.uk) anyways.

[Jeff Martin]

The average American internet user equates .com with website. As for all the other domains, they are clearly inferior.

This is the main issue here I think. We just now have the majority of web users realizing what a .com is (or at least supposed to be).

There is a perception about non .com sites, a perception of inferiority. The probable exceptions to that perception are .edu and .org sites; of course these domain extensions have been around a long while.

I know that, even in today's internet, if I had a serious web venture in place that was setup to be revenue generating that I would make .com my main site address. Then I'd simply buy up the other domains to prevent spamming or deceptive practices of scrappers/imitators.

[Pyrrhonist]

Originally Posted by Jeff Martin

Move to Google.us? Not likely. We Americans think the world needs to conform to us... for Pete's sake we refuse to be on the metric system.

LOL - I refrained from bringing up the metric system issue, but that was the central thought behind my previous post.

[ephricon]

Originally Posted by PaulH

...Maybe this is why Google is more popular in Europe.

Is it really? Its hard to imagine how Google could be more popular that it already is here (US). IMO most of the search traffic Yahoo and MSN get are not people visiting for their search engine, but rather those already on those sites that then desire to do a search. For example, I'm checking my email or sports scores or tv listings via MyYahoo, and in checking a sports score I now want to look up a player that was mentioned...

With MSN they are set as the default page quite often via their browser penetration, and they also are a rather helpful news site. I, in fact, have my default page set as MSN since I like their balance of "real news" and interesting stories and such.

Other than that I really have yet to meet someone who uses Yahoo or MSN purely for the search. I even give the occasional lecture at a local college/university and I don't think I've ever had one of the students raise their hand as MSN or Yahoo being their true prefered engine. Sure I've seen the larger studies, but in my experience Google's share here in the US is pretty dominant already.

[Jorge]

Only in the US are non .com sites perceived as inferior, and even that is not true due to the exceptions (.gov, .edu etc...). Ask anyone in the UK (.co.uk), in France with the .fr, Spain's .es, Italy, Germany...

Originally Posted by ephricon

To me its a nice idea, but they missed the boat. Even if you take Ian's suggestion about not hurting any .com sites and using both them and .us in Google.us - I don't think it would really matter. The five people per day who used Google.us over Google.com probably wouldn't notice much of a swing in their results, as 90% of the sites I currently get back are .com (and not something like .co.uk) anyways.

That is the point. Google.com gives you .com results. Google.co.uk gives you .co.uk results, same in the rest of the googles. If there were a Google.us it should give you American .us results.

Originally Posted by ephricon

If when I searched I found that 75% of the .com sites I'm finding are based in another country than maybe I'd care - but that's not the case. I'd say maybe 3% of the time, if that, do I happen upon a .com that is not US-based without expecting that to be the case.

I don't have the numbers but I would think there are a LOT more non US sites with a .com domain than 3%. When I say non-US I mean a site representing a company that is not American. Not the hosting, as the US hosts a great part of the worlds web sites. Anyone has the numbers by the way? You would be surprised as to how many sites you think are American are actually not.

[Jeff Martin]

but in my experience Google's share here in the US is pretty dominant already.

As a matter of fact, Verizon I believe had a commerical on a couple of nights ago (in the US) and they were discussing their web capabilities for their cell phones. While showing their phone Google's home page popped up.

So now we have television advertisers including Google in their commercials.

[Jorge]

Google is VERY dominant in Europe. More than in the US. You said it, Americans use different search engines for different purposes. As far as I know in Europe Google is the absolute king.

[Jeff Martin]

I don't have the numbers but I would think there are a LOT more non US sites with a .com domain than 3%.

That may very well be true. However,who is going to teach users to search this way? Many users are still searching using one and two word general phrases and are suprised when they dont get the results they were after.

How about this, why dont the SEs launch a campaign to teach people how to use the search engines? For Pete's sake 'Google' is now a verb...and the SEs play a fundemental and crucial role in helping people find what they are after in the endless space of the internet. They are making billions, imagine how much more money they could possibly make if people knew how to fully use an SE.

This is where our industry could evolve - end users become educated in how to find what they are looking for, for example using longer phrases, trying to be more specific in their desires. Instead of 'widgets' they search for 'red long widgets in dallas'.

It would be more profitable to be more precise in your SEO as your visitors would be using narrower searches to find you. Arent your narrower search users converting better? Mine do.

It seems it would be in the SE's best interest to educate rather than having users try other engines.

[Jorge]

I completely agree with you. But as you know people will not learn how to search unless it becomes a mandatory class in grade school or high school.

Specific search terms are indeed always better. A real search term in my logs that converted to a sale: "I want to buy company A's widget". Can't get better than that. ;-)

Instead of having a .us domain I think the already available "local" link is much better and serves the purpose of a .US domain even better actually as you can specify your city or state. I wouldn't mind that feature in other country specific googles.

[Pyrrhonist]

On other thing they've have to consider before going to google.us is webmasters. I find it hard to believe that US-based commerce sites (the documented purpose behind the .com TLD) would give up their properties to move to a .us. Sure, they might create an additional domain and forward one to the other, but can you see Dell picking up shop and moving from dell.com to dell.us to keep Google happy?

Originally Posted by wikipedia

lthough .com domains have always been intended for commercial use, they are currently available for anyone to register. In the 1990s, .com became the most common top-level domain for websites, especially commercial ones, and gave its name to dot-com companies.

(fn 1)

Being that .com is registerd and was maintained by an US organization (the original holder was DARPA (fn 2)), IMHO it stands to reason that the intention was for US-based commerce.


fn 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.com
fn 2: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc920.txt

I expect that future search engines will provide personalization capabilities which will make it unnecessary to go to country-specific search tools. The search engine will know which user is interested in results from which country or region, based on previous search behavior.

[mcanerin]

...when I see any website with a domain other than .com my initial assumption is that the site probably couldn't get the .com extension and "had to settle" for the alternative.

Actually, Canada had that problem too. I keep bringing them up because 1) I'm familiar with them, and 2) we are so close to the US in terms of proximity and culture that it's probably the closest comparision.

When the .ca was first brought out, no one wanted them. After all, wasn't the internet supposed to be international? Why would you start a website and then restrict yourself? Additionally, there was definitely a perception of .ca as an "also ran" second choice if you could not get the .com.

Not to mention the very real problem that if you cater to an international audience but use a regional tld, you may be overlooked by potential clients who may be turned off from using a website that may not be intended to cater to them.

Finally, there was the very real problem of people automatically typing in .com at the end of domains, which could result in someone landing on your competitor after you sent all the time selling your concept to them over the radio, or whatever.

This list of negatives is very real, but it turns out, not very important.

.com is the standard, and always will be, that I can see. There is no difference between settling for a .net and a .us - the exact same objections and issues apply to both.

But in practice what ended up happening was that most websites used the .com, but a lot started to use the .ca, and in a very short time the public here got used to the idea.

Here is the really interesting thing: once people got used to the idea, it turns out that they accepted that sites with an essentially local focus (ie law firms, etc) would often use the .ca and companies with an international focus would use the .com - and the .ca became an alternate standard - now it's the .net that's the odd one out. very few people want them. There is a place in the world for cc tld's, for .com, .org and .edu, but the idea behind .net was to only be for purely technical nodes like webservers, etc. In short it was a specialist TLD for geeks.

But since it's rarely used that way, it's now the "also ran" and people tend to focus on .com or .ca as the standard for business and .org for non-profits.

One thing that needs to be stressed here is that google.us does NOT mean you need to give up your beloved .com, or go out and get a .us - the two are completely separate issues.

As an example for relevency, type in a search for something like "SEO" and look at how many non-US sites show up in the top 30. This is the leading edge of an international storm. The storm is on it's way and it's way too late to stop it.

Some of the best SEO's in the world are in the UK, and some of the most prolific linkers are in places like India, China and eastern Europe, where the people-power necessary to do it is currently cheap in comparision. It's a very short matter of time before the US dominance of the .com SERPs is gone - and there will be no fall back position.

Everything is always fine and perfectly safe until the bomb actually lands and explodes. It's even safe when it's still a foot above the ground. But I respectfully suggest that it's a good idea to start moving before it arrives, not afterward.

It's not that it's bad for non-US sites to show up in Google.com - that's actually proper behaviour for an international site. On a global scale, it's relevant. But on a local scale, it's not.

I'm wondering how much of the complaining about Google's increasing lack of relevance has to do with Googles increasing globalization of it's SERPs. Sometimes it's not a lack of relevance - it's a lack of focus on a local user.

The easiest and least intrusive form of personalization that a search engine can offer is a regional portal. Almost everything else requires some sort of big brother being involved.

This doesn't apply only to Google, but also Yahoo, MSN and Ask - as a matter of fact, I think the ability for Americans to choose a virtual "Made in America" product or service is a good thing.

I freely admit to having a bias here - I'm aware from personal experience the benifits of a regional SE, and frankly I'm just trying to make my life easier when I'm working in the States (my company is a US taxpayer, for example). My concern is that this is one of those things you don't really understand the value of until you experience it personally - ironically, the people it's most applicable to are the ones least qualified to judge it's value.

How many people who think that there would be no real value in a google.us also were not convinced there would be value in that "internet thing". Bunch of geeks connecting - bah! I don't mind walking to the bank - it's good exercise...

I think that you should think about the fact that not one person with actual experience using a regional engine is questioning it's value in this thread - only those who haven't tried it can't see the value - kind of like broadband access instead of dial-up .

Ian

[Jorge]

One person can have different personal preferences. One day he/she may want local results, tomorrow global, another industry specific ... Personalization may be good but I don't think it is the future, also there is the use of all that information by the search engines.

[ephricon]

Originally Posted by Jorge

Google is VERY dominant in Europe. More than in the US. You said it, Americans use different search engines for different purposes. As far as I know in Europe Google is the absolute king.

Actually what I was saying was quite the opposite. My whole point was that very few people use different search engines here, but rather they typically only tend to use those sites as search engines when they already happen to be on those sites for other non-search related uses. IMO Yahoo Search would not survive at all in the US were it not for Yahoo's other service offerings. I believe that's why Google is getting more into the portal business - to take away that bit of search traffic from Yahoo.

[ephricon]

Originally Posted by Jorge

Only in the US are non .com sites perceived as inferior, and even that is not true due to the exceptions (.gov, .edu etc...). Ask anyone in the UK (.co.uk), in France with the .fr, Spain's .es, Italy, Germany...

Yes, you've made my point for me. To my understanding the point of this thread is to analyze whether there should be a Google.us or not. As such, the main discussion has been the differences in serving American internet users vs. those in other countries. Thus, as my post was to explain how insignificant the .us extension is in the US - and why this being a significant factor in differentiating between Google.com and Google.us would be pointless. Americans haven't accepted .us in the same way other countries have accepted other domain extensions. It may work very nicely elsewhere, b/c there are good sites with those extensions. Here there are very very few reputable and established businesses with .us as their primary domain.

Originally Posted by Jorge

That is the point. Google.com gives you .com results. Google.co.uk gives you .co.uk results, same in the rest of the googles. If there were a Google.us it should give you American .us results.

But .com sites already are American results I really don't mean to sound cocky here but it helps to make my point. I very rarely have the problem of finding a site based in another country that I wasn't expecting. Sure it may happen occasionally, but overall this is not a problem for most.

Originally Posted by Jorge

I don't have the numbers but I would think there are a LOT more non US sites with a .com domain than 3%. When I say non-US I mean a site representing a company that is not American. Not the hosting, as the US hosts a great part of the worlds web sites.

I agree with you here. What I meant was that maybe only 3% of those sites that I visit via searches are not what I want b/c they are based in another country. This merely illustrates that its not a big problem in the US - the average US internet user isn't frustrated beyond belief from finding sites from other countries. Thus, the benefit to be obtained is very small. I can understand how this would be helpful in other countries, especially those where a relatively low number of potentially matching resulting sites are actually of companies based in that country.

Personally I think if you pole the average American internet user or even the "average" American SEO you'll find that they would compain about several other relevancy issues with Google before they would complain about constantly finding sites from other countries when that's not what they were looking for.

[PhilC]

Originally Posted by Robert_Charlton

And then, of course, there's the World Series, which for many years never left New York City.

The World Series had and has nothing to do with geography. It was named after the newspaper (The World) that either originally sponsorerd it or created it. It's not a world championship. I thought everyone knew that

I suspect that the U.S. people here are unaware of the way that regional Googles work. E.g:-

Originally Posted by ephricon

The five people per day who used Google.us over Google.com ....

Regional Google users are offered a choice of world or regional results, and a great many people choose the regional results - perhaps most people. Also, when in the .com, we are offered the choice of going to the regional Google. So a *lot* of people would use a regional Google for the U.S.

The choice of TLDs for websites doesn't make any difference. If a site is hosted in the region, it qualifies for inclusion in the region's Google listings. E.g. I have a .net site which was ranked very highly in the UK results, but vanished from them as soon as I moved it to a U.S. host.

So, all in all, I do think that U.S. people are missing out by having their only choice of Google results mixed with the rest of the world's websites.

For those people who imagine that the vast majority of .coms are U.S. sites, you are very much mistaken.

This isn't on-topic, but it's had a good deal of discussion in the thread already so:- when I started on the web in 1997, I really didn't want a .co.uk domain because everyone had .coms and it seemed natural for people to remember to add .com to a domain name when typing it into a browser. That was desirable to me, and I guess it was for most website owners. But because of local sites advertising their .co.uk domains on TV, .co.uk became just as acceptable. If U.S. sites did the same sort of advertising, then I'm sure that the .us domains would become just as acceptable. In other words, I don't think it is too late. But a website's choice of TLD makes no difference to its inclusion in the regional results, as long as it is hosted in the region.

[ephricon]

Originally Posted by PhilC

The choice of TLDs for websites doesn't make any difference. If a site is hosted in the region, it qualifies for inclusion in the region's Google listings. E.g. I have a .net site which was ranked very highly in the UK results, but vanished from them as soon as I moved it to a U.S. host.

So, all in all, I do think that U.S. people are missing out by having their only choice of Google results mixed with the rest of the world's websites.

So long as the domain extensions are not a significant factor and hypothetically if there's no negative effect on relevancy that I won't argue that this is a "bad" idea. Clearly its not.

However, my entire point here is that its not needed or wanted. There is no problem. Google.co.uk may exist because the .com results for the average UK user may not be relevant. I do not feel the American user sees the .com results as problematic or irrelevant b/c of the geography issue.

I don't think you can convince the average US user to do anything different until you convince them that the regular Google.com results are not good enough. Until you do this, I don't think you'll get any adoption on Google.us or will you even get them to simply click another link to view regional results. Why should they? The results they have are fine in their minds. This is why local search, which I personally do love, has not completely triumphed over the boring general search.

[Gurtie]

But in practice what ended up happening was that most websites used the .com, but a lot started to use the .ca, and in a very short time the public here got used to the idea.

ditto here - most companies register both .com and .co.uk but nowadays if you're based in the UK and you sell to primarily UK people then its most common to publicise your .co.uk domain

The search engine will know which user is interested in results from which country or region, based on previous search behavior.

I really hope not. My search behaviour yesterday is no definition of what I want to find today. Research and travel aren't helped by some server somewhere deciding I only want to know about things within 50 miles...