Best domain extension for Indian site for seo?

[teeny-tinygrandmother703]

Hi

What is the best domain extension for traffic and seo for a new Indian site?

.com
.co.in
. In

Thanks in advance !

[Rajesh]

.com is internationally recogonised domain.
If u want to target nly india u can use .in or co.in or .com is the only great option.

[Punam]

If your site based on india.so select .in other wise com.

[Pascal Perry]

Dear Question Mark,

ANSWER:

Choose the .com extension and make sure to follow steps below to ensure proper visibility of your website in India-specific search engines.

EXPLANATION:

First, here is what Matts Cutts—renowned Google's evangelist—has to say about generic top level domain extensions (aka gTLD, e.g., .com, .org, .info) vs. country-code top level domain extensions (aka ccTLD, e.g., .in, .uk, .fr):

"We tend to look at the IP address, we tend to look at the gTLD or the ccTLD. There's also something in Google's Webmaster Tools where you can say my site is not just a .com, but it's a .com that really pertains to, for instance, UK, New Zealand or Australia. (...) So, you should spend your time trying to make sure you have the right domain name, the right IP address if you can, and then definitely if you have content that's geo-located, even if it's a subdomain or a subdirectory, you can specify that within Google's Webmaster Tools and say yes, this is relevant for this particular country." (Source: the video "How do meta geo tags influence the search results?" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0y0Jk-zzQ )

In a nuttshell, a search performed from a given country gives a boost to:

—a ccTLD pertaining to that country;
—a site with an IP address from that country, regardless of its TLD extension;
—a gTLD if more relevant, regardless of its IP address and country of origin.

So for best results, make sure to geotarget your site by:

—selecting an IP address from India, if possible; and
—explicitly selecting India as your country of preference from Google Webmaster Tools (i.e., select the country from the menu "Site configuration > Settings > Geographic target")

Then choose the .com extension for better recognition given the TLD dilemma (gTLD vs. ccTLD) is not relevant anymore because of this geotargetting functionality.

For proper understanding of those technical intricacies, you may find links below valuable.

—Pascal Perry
Online Findability and SEO Strategist
Incidentally, informed geolocalizer
.