Does the TLD matter for SEO?

The .gs and similar country specific TLDs exist just for emphasizing patriotic or local identity of a business. It doesn't matter much to search engines.  They don't work on the assumption that .gs sites are relevant only to people of South Georgia. The traffic could have been higher on a .com only because of the relative ease of hitting control enter after typing a word. However, how many times do we actually use the address bar to type the name of a site. We usually reach places via clicks, especially via search engines. So, I'm not sure how much would that affect your traffic. The language and localisation are functions of the content, its geotagging and geotargetting (google webmaster tools have settings for it). Just to be psychologically sure, do you think http://bit.ly is a Libyan site and hence, is limited in its reach to people of other nations?

Yes it does!But as you noted, the difference is rather small. It's just ONE single signal among 200 more...One thing you can do to try to overlap this small difference is to make sure you specify that your website's language is English on both, your website's meta tags and on the Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools).In general, I would say that a good domain which is short, easy to remember and is either descriptive of what you do or contains a solid brand name is much more important that getting the perfect ".whatever"One exception... If your site is for a local type of business, like a restaurant or a service which is delivered locally, or your site is strongly related to the local culture or language, then the weight the domain carries could be great enough to only consider going for the local termination.

Since it's a geographical TLD it might matter when your users look at it (would you go to a restaurant site with a .ca TLD when you're in the US?), but I wouldn't be too worried as long as it's not a local business and as long as you've set the international targeting properly under webmaster tools, see this help article by google: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

There are many opinions in this regard. Many people say that  TLD no matter for SEO. From my point of view matters a lot in two directions: How is anyone tempted to give link How easy it is to remember your address However I can not say that all TLDs are best !! http://2020.fm cheers !!