Forgot to say, I don’t think you need to really concern yourself who you register your domain with, it’s more important that you use the right TLD.

In general you want your site hosting and domain in the same country as your target market.

You can test this by going to different country’s versions of the search engines. For example, if I use the UK version of Yahoo or Google, most of the websites that will be returned will end in .uk, not .com.

As far as testing .com here in the states, my wife owned a Jewelry website for awhile and when it was new I noticed in our analytics program that the most people who were visiting the site found us through Google and were from the same geographic location as the place the web hosting server was located.

I found that interesting. The site at the time didn’t have really any links pointing to it. That told me the hosting must of had something to do with it.

But as far as TLDs go, the country code you use will have a major impact search engine-wise. Don’t use .au if you hope to rank in the US. I live in the US and let me tell you, I never see a .au website in Google.

I have noticed that .com seems to be the most flexible if your target customers are everywhere in the world.

I hope that answers your questions.

Basically, if you want to rank on Google.com.au then Aussie hosting with a .au is the best way to go.

Thanks for the post. Do you know if it matters where I register my domains?
For instance, I live in Australia. Will it have any SEO impact if I get my domains via a US based registrar and then point at my websites hosted in different locations (i.e. AUS, UK…)?

Or would it be better to use a local (AUS) domain name registrar and local web host for local target audiences? Or does the geographic location of the registrar not matter, yet using a local web host would be better?

Also, if all other factors are the same (backlinks coming from same sources, same content, on page optimization, etc) can I achieve the same position on Google’s SERPs using a .COM domain compared to using a .COM.AU domain?

Thanks.
Have a great day!

Log into your Webmaster Tools, click on the Site configuration drop down on the left, and then Settings.

You should see it there.

Here’s a screen shot.

Is the screenshot above and old one or have I just not spotted it?

I know that Google keep messing about with the Webmaster Tools.
Keith Davis´s last blog ..The eyes have it!