Best domain to promote a french hotel in english

[DoMiSoL]

Hello, I have to promote a french hotel for english target and I have to choose a domain.

I only have 2 domains available:

1. Exact Match Domain with .fr extension i.e. hotelsinavignone.fr

2. Partial Match Domain with .com extension i.e. myhotelsinavignone.com

Which one has more possibilities to rank better on google.com for the keyword "hotels in avignone" ?

Thank you very much,

DoMiSol Rossini

[DoMiSoL]

Thank you Jane, you give me the opportunity to explain better.

I am targeting the english language, more than the single country, so If I have to pick up one I guess .com would be better for that.

Yes I also want to target french market (it is a french hotel) and I have a french version of the site under the domain/fr directory.

I guess it's remarkably weird to have the french version like this:

hotelsinavignone.fr/fr

So i think I am going to go with a less exact KW match but .com extension.

myhotelsinavignone.com (english site)

myhotelsinavignone.com/fr (french site)

Thank you all very much.

DoMiSoL Rossini

[JaneCopland]

Hi,

Is your target market international or targeting one particular country? I would only recommend a .fr domain if you are targeting a French market: if you're looking at the UK, see if you can get a .co.uk domain. For the United States or an international market, go with .com. It is harder to get a geo-targeted domain, i.e. one on a .fr, to rank in a country that is _not _France with a language that is not English. You will see .es domains ranking with Spanish language content in South America, but you rarely see situations like the one you're proposing.

From the UK, I see some .fr domains ranking in local search for this term, but no sites ranking in "regular" results: http://i.imgur.com/ZhKTxk9.png

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

If your main goal is to rank on google.com (and it sounds like it is), then you should go with the .com domain.

However, you should be aware that exact keyword matched domains are not as powerful as they used to be.  Google released an update to the algorithm that specifically targeted exact match domains and lowered the value that they provide.  You will not receive a significant chance of ranking higher just because your domain exactly matches the search query.

Although this particular post is 1.5 years old, it's still extremely relevant and has a lot of great info if you'd like to read more beyond my answer:

http://moz.com/blog/the-exact-match-domain-playbook-a-guide-and-best-practices-for-emds