Google has clarified its stance on the .CO domain, now that is has been fully launched and released for sale globally.
Most registrants of .CO are expected to have registered their .CO domains with an international perspective as an alternative to .COM, rather than with the intent of using the domains for the local Columbian market.
However, Google normally keeps country-specific top level domains local in terms of searches. For instance, a .DE domain name will rank very well in local German Google searches, but less well in France. International top-level domains such as .COM however, has a global reach on Google.
While the .CO domain is still assigned to the country Colombia in Google searches, a Google spokesperson have indicated that this will change. “We will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted. Webmasters will soon have the functionality to be able to specify this by using the geotargeting options in Google Webmaster Tools.”
(Partial source: www.pcpro.co.uk)