Yep, fair point, you're probably right about that. I was thinking more TLDs like .net vs .com and forgot about the regional side of things, even though I had just mentioned it for ranking based on language.

I guess on that note, I also vaguely remember that .com/.net differentiation was something that people tried in various contexts (not sure if searching was one of them) before we all figured out, "wait, this doesn't mean anything about quality other than which one you chose to buy."