Conclusions and recommendations

[mercedes]

If you are targeting a specific country, then make use of the country code TLD of your targeted country. This gives you better rankings in your preferred target location. However, if you do target several countries, using a country code TLD is not advisable; instead, use a generic TLD such as .com, .net, or .org which does not have any country associated with it. Also, remember that search location can influence ranking results, as observed above.

[sussextech]

Although, a better method is to get a .com or whatever, then create subdomains and sites targeted at each country. So for example, uk.example.com, us.example.com or nz.example.com.

If you are based in the UK and are targeting an American market, the location of your web server will also make a difference.