Which Google does a .ie website get shown in?

[Bee159]

Hi all, I am working on a .ie website and I was under the understanding that if you have a regional domain, like .ie you will limited to being shown in a search engine like google.ie

When I go to International Targeting in Google SEarch Console it says the site is associated with: Ireland

Am I limiting my ability to rank well in worldwide Google searches with this domain and if so, how can I counter this?

Many thanks.

[gfiorelli1]

I see a lot of confusion in all the answers :-).

The .ie domain is never treated as a generic domain name by Google. It's the country code domain for Ireland. Stop.

A country code domain name is geo-targeted by default on its corresponding regional version of Google, but Google doesn't "block" its visibility also in others Google (i.e.: Google.com or Google.co.uk), however, a ccTLD will have more difficulties in ranking higher in another Google than its own.

In other words:

1. domain.ie is targeting by default Google.ie;
2. but, it can be shown in Google.co.uk too;
3. however, for ranking in Google.co.uk - because of its geo-targeted nature - it must have stronger signals like mentions and backlinks to justify its visibility than a domain.co.uk or domain.com.

[Moreleads]

to go back to your initial question and assuming .ie is treated as ccTLD, what GSC seems to validate; in Google´s eyes your site is more relevant for users in Ireland and will therefore not be able to rank equally well as a gTLD globally.

What you can do is change to a gTLD (which i think is the most efficient if you have one website targeting globally). or ccTLD´s for the countries you want to target (ok if you have a lot of recourses)

[Bee159]

I'm keen to know, too. Thanks.

[Moreleads]

Hi Alick300,

isn´t .ie a ccTLD though for Ireland or does google treat this one as a gccTLD as seen here https://www.screencast.com/t/5YgjXIriy ?

[Bee159]

Thank you - so am I right in saying the quote above says it doesn't matter whether the site is .ie or .com - it will not be detrimental to its ability to be shown in any version of Google search?

[Alick300]

Hi,

I'm quoting John mueller(Googler).

"Q: How are the new region or city TLDs (like .london or .bayern) handled?

A: Even if they look region-specific, we will treat them as gTLDs. This is consistent with our handling of regional TLDs like .eu and .asia. There may be exceptions at some point down the line, as we see how they're used in practice. See our help center for more information on multi-regional and multilingual sites, and set geotargeting in Search Console where relevant."

Hope this helps!!

Thanks