Using .ca for an American audience?

[burgerman]

Have any of you bought/registered a .ca domain with the intention of focusing on an American audience rather than a Canadian one?

For instance, a fellow domainer mentioned to me that he believed some Americans mistake .ca to be a state-based domain extension (eg California).

If you have used a .ca for a US audience can you please share with us your experience? Is the traffic mostly from America? Has it made any money?

[Banned: Wzhxvy]

I have a few California locations in .ca and they absolutely get US traffic. The issue is how to monetize it.

[hugegrowth]

Build webpages about those California locations and put adsense on them. They will pull in ads for the local area. Perfect Geo domains.

I notice in Google keywords if you type in 'ca' you get a lot of California cities with 'ca' added, like 'san francisco ca', 'san diego ca', 'hollywood ca'.

If someone does a search for 'san diego ca', would sandiego.ca get pulled up in a search like that?

[burgerman]

Build webpages about those California locations and put adsense on them. They will pull in ads for the local area. Perfect Geo domains.

I notice in Google keywords if you type in 'ca' you get a lot of California cities with 'ca' added, like 'san francisco ca', 'san diego ca', 'hollywood ca'.

If someone does a search for 'san diego ca', would sandiego.ca get pulled up in a search like that?

I typed in "San Diego Ca" into Google.com (not google.ca) and nothing came up.

But typing "SanDiego.Ca" brought up "SanDiego.ca"

[hugegrowth]

Seems like a lot of California cities in .ca are parked, I wonder if they were developped and had some Seo work, would they show up in searches like that.

This is interesting: http://www.co.fresno.ca.us

Seems others cities have the same ca.us extension too

[Banned: Wzhxvy]

The traffic comes from people who forget to type the .gov typically

the domains are XXXXXX.ca.gov so you get that traffic

[CanSpace]

Even for the (rare) intelligent American who realizes that a .ca is a Canadian ccTLD, it still isn't necessarily a turn-off.

I don't mean to sound like a marketing machine here but it's been long recognized that "Canada" is seen as a trusted brand around the world. Personally in a choice between a completely obscure my-company-4u.com (or something along those lines) vs mycompany.ca, I would definitely go for the .ca ccTLD... even if you were targeting an international audience.

Which brings up a bigger question... what about people from OUTSIDE North America? Perhaps they are even more likely to do business with a .ca than with a .com business.

[Credit]

I have a few California locations in .ca and they absolutely get US traffic. The issue is how to monetize it.

Sell them to me!