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The country codes are very specific to their countries and are GENERALLY not ranked very high in other countries. .de and .co.uk are very popular TLDs in their perspective countries, however. I wish .us were used more in the US, but I do agree with Nexis' strict rules re: foreign use. I believe that this TLD will eventually emerge and become popular in the US.
Google and other search engines seem to be very stubborn in insisting that rankings stick to a country-specific algorithm.
Some exceptions may be in the works for .tv and .me, given their general appeal and applications: "TV" is a recognizable term in just about every country, and "me" isn't far behind. I like .me very much, but, in the end, it's still a country code for Montenegro. As a term, I also like .TV very much, but I don't like the pricing structure of premiums and feel that this (more than anything else), has held this natural and organic TLD back.
Still comparing ccTLDs to gTLDs is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.
Of the gTLDs, I like .com and .net the best; they are what they are: #1 and #2 of the globals.
.org is a distant 3rd, simply because .org registry does not follow its original mission of allowing non-profits only to register .org domains. Once the .org registry opened the floodgates, it ceased being the official non-profit TLD, and (IMO) lost its #2 position. Once the general public gets burned by a few .orgs, they, too, will look at .org through a different and less trusting lens.
.info should be a fantastic TLD, but somewhere it became a spammer's paradise. Thank GoDaddy for its cheapie registrations. I don't know if this perception will ever change.
.biz was ill-considered from the start: that horrible variant abbreviation of "bus" just does not sound professional. For that reason alone, this TLD is doomed to limp behind the major three globals. Add in expensive registrations and renewals, well, a recipe for failure.
.mobi--oh, my. Take a lovely TLD and ruin it by running aftermarket auctions that have a whiff of stink about them and add in a failure to force .mobi users to develop mobile-compliant websites. If something positive does not happen here soon, .mobi will become .noway. And I so wanted to like this TLD.
.pro has possibilities. I think it's a good thing that the registry has some standards for registering a .pro. However, they may have to tweak their rules a bit to include teachers, writers, architects, plumbers, electricians--anyone who belongs to a bonafide profession; a business name and phone number should be sufficient. Moreover, the regsitration should be inexpensive enough so that people want to own a .pro website.
.museum, .aero, .jobs, .travel may be too specific to be of much use.
.coop is just plain silly. I know: it's supposed to be pronounced co-op, but it looks like chicken.coop--very difficult to take seriously.
.name is pretty much dead; I actually allowed some premiums to drop, and the last time I checked they were still available.
.tel is too early to tell, but I think it will swoop in and fill in some of the functions intended by .mobi (except the website part). A lot will depend on how Telnic develops the TLD and how well they listen to the Telnic community (investors, etc,).
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