Which international ccTLDs should a small but global company register?

[DomainM]

I have a small business which will cater to a world wide audience, I have secured (at great cost) the specific generic .com term used within my growing travel sector and would like to ensure that I cover all ccTLD basis (within reason) for when I begin to engage with regional customers.

I would like to ensure that as my brand develops that I have secured the necessary ccTLDs to avoid direct competition or worse intentional confusion. I do not wish to be help for future ransom by individuals seeing an opportunity to register the brand regionally.

Can you please suggest top ccTLDs which should be registered, at this early stage.

Many thanks

 

[GeekSlash]

Major english speaking countries: .co.uk, .us, .ca, .com.au, .co.za (some will require local presence)
Major economies: .de, .fr, .in, .cn, .ru
TLDs used commonly for non-ccTLD purposes: .tv, .me

Other countries you think you'll get orders from. Probably European ones like .it, .nl, .be, .es, .pl, .at, .ch

Obviously with non-english ccTLDs register in local language.

 

[DomainM]

Great reply. Thank you

Ps. I will be in contact shortly about some content. Your site http://www.oxfordcontent.com looks interesting.

 

[Edwin]

Major economies: .de, .fr, .in, .cn, .ru

If you're going for non-English economies, don't forget .jp (Japan has the third largest economy in the world after the US and China) However, if you NEVER plan to offer your website in other languages, don't bother!

 

[Blossom]

Make a list of the regions you intend to have a presence in, and add .net, .org, .com.

 

[eddieb]

Forget about .cn, unless you have a member of staff living in China you can't buy this

 

[PaulGregory]

Well no, don't *forget* about domains that need a local presence, if you're going to engage with foreign customers and there's a risk that a local will reg "your" name, then take the steps necessary to establish the local presence and get the name *before* you go public with your intent to engage with that country. Bake it into your plans.

I would have thought that if you have paid lots of money for a .com, the cost of just grabbing all the ccTLDs you can will be relatively small. (Although I appreciate that if you've spent lots of money, it doesn't always mean you still have the same amount to spend again).

So I'd plan to hoover up all the ccTLDs you can reg now, and prioritize forming bases in the countries that need local presence.

A simple thing to do would be to pop the name of some competitors into one of those domain searches that does every extension in the world and see which are registered.

GeekSlash's point about local language is underplayed - if your name is a generic term that has a more common equivalent in a particular language then you definitely should get that as well.