@David_HarrisonNov 07.2005 — #I prefer to visit sites with a .com, .net or .org domain, purely on the basis that when I type the name in, ctrl+enter will add the www. and .com for me, shift+enter will add the www. and .net and ctrl+shift+enter will add the www. and .org.
If however I'm clicking on a link to go to a web-site, I really don't care what the address looks like. However, the chances are that a .ru domain will be in Russian, therefore useless to me. But for the most part people are free to register whatever domains they like, thankfully though some restraint is still excercised over .edu and .gov domain names, at least there's still SOME order left.
@omnicityNov 09.2005 — #This is why you get language options in Google et al - then you can restrict results to ones that you will understand, regardless of the location of the site.
Of course, the TLD is only meant to be an indication of the ownership of a site, not even the location, still less the language of that site.
@MstrBobNov 09.2005 — #True, but I think it's generally assumed that if you have a .de site, it's probably in german, and a .fr will most likely be in french. That would be purely based off of the domain name alone, of course.
Interesting thing, though, is that people always seem to limit it to .com, .net, .org, .edu, and .gov. There are a number of websites that should be taking advantage of more appropriate TLD's. Even for country codes, like .co.uk.
Perhaps think of an appropriate TLD if you're unsure of a country code? Like .name if it's personal website. Or .info if it's an informational website.