Google: ccTLDs & Language Do Help You Rank A Little Better In Local Country Region

Jul 19, 2024 - 7:41 am 4 by

Google Languages

Gary Illyes from Google said in the latest Google SEO office hours that using a ccTLD and the localized language on your page and website does help you rank a little better in the localized/regional version of Google. So if you want to rank better in Google in Korea, using a ccTLd such as .kr helps a little and using Korean text on your page helps even more.

This came up at the 3:35 mark in the video.

Question: When a Korean person searches Google in Korean, does a com.kr domain or a .com domain do better?

Answer: Good question. Generally speaking the local domain names, in your case .kr tend to do better because Google Search promotes content local to the user. That's not to say that a .com domain can't do well, it can, but generally .kr has a little more benefit, albeit not too much. If the language of a site matches the user's query language, that probably has more impact than the domain name itself. There's more on managing international websites.

Here is the embed:

Forum discussion at X.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google

Google Sued SerpApi Over Scraping Search Results

Dec 19, 2025 - 3:50 pm
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: December 19, 2025

Dec 19, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Status, Gemini 3 Flash In AI Mode, Optimizing For AI Search & Bug Fixes Galore

Dec 19, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google

Google Product Reviews Bug On Product Detail Pages

Dec 19, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Search Testing New Sports Features

Dec 19, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Tests Video Assets From Merchant Center

Dec 19, 2025 - 7:31 am
 
Previous Story: Google's On Knowing If Your SEO Team Is Doing Their Job