Short answer is yes and no

Let me clarify:

Since Google is the dominate search tool used in Europe, a well optimized site will be competitive over there for the same search terms that work here in the US.

An example:

searches done 10/23/2009 12:47:23 PM

If you search the term ” koeksisters recipe ” at www.google.com you’ll see that www.africhef.com and www.koeksister.us are #1 & 2 in the results.

Searching for the same term at www.google.nl (Holland) and  http://www.google.de (German), you’ll get the same top two results.

Interestingly the search in the UK had a different out come africhef.com was still #1 and koeksister.us was now #4.

This goes to show that in Google case each website performs well for the keywords it is optimized for.

Where the “No” comes in is that in Holland a searcher would likely search for “koeksisters recept“,  and for that term africhef.com and koeksister.us are no where to be found.

To efficiently optimize for those markets I would need to work with a native speaker to create a mini site for each region.

This would be an additional fee.