In the UK where co.uk dominates dot coms are often left on the shelf like the ugly sister. I still to this day hand register lovely dot coms (city name + service/keyword) where the co.uk has long since gone. The owners of the co.uk’s obviously don’t feel the need to even do a defensive registration of the com to protect their traffic.

It’s all to do with trust. British consumers want to see the co.uk when they trransact with a website because it tells them they are more likely doing business with a reputable company. They know products ordered will be shipped quicker and more cheaply. They also feel assured that in the event of a problem the company is in the same country and easier to contact.

Now if Businesses have got into this mindset that the local ccTLD reassures consumers and therefore increases sales, they would naturally try and replicate that in countries they expand to or do business in. This is more than likely why they choose .us for websites aimed at the American market.

As a domainer of many years myself, I for one have only recently just learnt that .us is not the best loved extension. If it’s taken me all these years to understand that then i doubt large marketing departments are so in tune with the domaining side of things to understand this concept either – hence they stick with what the figures tell them that ccTLD’s convert in their appropriate countries.

James

Companies and others here in Europe advertise and use the CCTLD 80-90% of the time although .com is also well recognized in for example The Netherlands where I’m from.

At the moment I’m actually staying in Belgium for a while. When I’m browsing through a local advertising newspaper, I would say roughly: 90% .be then some .coms and even a few .info’s

site:.us +inc +inurl:inc -inurl:state -inurl:ci -inurl:co -inurl:fed -inurl:k12 -inurl:lib

“ site:.us +inc +inurl:inc -inurl:state -inurl:ci -inurl:co -inurl:fed -inurl:k12 -inurl:lib “