The issue mostly comes down to whether or not search engines (and other web entities) should treat TLD's as pure namespacing items or actual indicators of geogr

The issue mostly comes down to whether or not search engines (and other web entities) should treat TLD's as pure namespacing items or actual indicators of geography (the classic case being ".tv" - were you trying to indicate that your site was related to Tuvalu, or that it was about a sitcom?) It's something that is still in flux, I believe it was within the last 12 months that Google officially switched over to treating ".io" as a generic TLD instead of country specific. For reference, they have a listing here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en