Perry Bernard: Not at all, +Tony McCreath ;. The issue is that CTR from SERPs is reduced if you have a ccTLD that is 'unexpected' for the target. Rank is not affected by selection of ccTLD, assuming you correctly geotarget the domain. Google will by default target it it to match the country of the ccTLD, which may not be what you are after.
Edwin Jonk: I would say yes. For example take a look at these two queries: https://www.google.nl/#q=vegatarische+recepten https://www.google.be/#q=vegatarische+recepten The query is the same but on different regional search engines, namely on google.nl and google.be. On google.nl there are 7 .nl's, 2 .be's and one .net. On google.be there are 7 .be's, 2 .nl's and one .net.
Although on both regional search engines .nl and .be do rank, it seems that the regional search engine values the ccTLD for the specific region over ccTLD's outside the specific region.
Federico Sasso: I'd say yes, at least that's my experience.
Tony McCreath: +Perry Bernard ;Good point. I'll see if I can gather data to see if CTR changes with the same position in different regions.
Before I switched to com.au my .com domain was set into GWT to Australia. Shouldn't that mean it was also considered as targeting Australia?
Federico Sasso: > assuming you correctly geotarget the domain +Perry Bernard, you might well be aware of it, sorry if I state the obvious: There is no way - at least with Google - to geo-target a ccTLD to a country different from the associated one, unless it is among the ccTLDs listed as "generic" https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922 ;(see " Generic Country Code Top Level Domains " section) For all the other ccTLD, geo-localization option is not even available in GWT
A domain has an explicit region with a ccTLD or a set one in GWT or a guessed one from IP.
Does every domain get a preference for a region or can a domain be global?
Perry Bernard: Sorry Tony, The Big G recently changed their interface for targeting in GWT, I see. Now in the category "International Targeting" under Search Traffic, global targeting can not be selected for non-geotargetable ccTLDs. If I recall, you 'used to' be able to select 'unlisted' for ccTLDs and hence target globally. Not sure if I was just plain wrong, or this changed.
Federico Sasso: +Perry Bernard ;UI changed, but functionality is always the same: it has never been possible to change it for most of ccTLD (and imho it would be very useful)
Edwin Jonk: Does every domain get a preference for a region or can a domain be global?
I don't think there are domains that are truly global (maybe facebook). Maybe a .com TLD is truly global but as soon as a web site is placed it has some text in some language and is hosted from some IP. ;
Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:39:49 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/does_having_a_cctld_reduce_your_ability_to_rank_outside_your_country +Tony McCreath
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Does having a ccTLD reduce your ability to rank outside your country? 
