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Hi Jim, I think you might find this article by Mike Blumenthal to be helpful: http://localu.org/blog/merge-google-pages-usually-cant-now/

Officially it is said that the CC of a TLD makes no difference for the ranking if you do your SEO homework right... I would agree with that in general BUT inofficially the CC of your domain matters in your case - .re is not comparable to  a .com domain! Take a look at the serach results: there are only a very few examples that a .re is ranking on high position outside it`s dedicated country. If a CCtld spells the name of your project it has no real influence or relevanve for the googlebot... it`s just a nice thing for yourself, marketing and maybe the visitors of your site. You dont need to buy the .com domain but if you can do so, I would always prefer this solution. This is always a question of money and if its worth it for you. My opinion is based on long-term experiences. If you rename your project it`s easy to transfer linkjuice, authority etc. by using a 301 redirection...