No More International Google Searches
December 6, 2017
One of the better things about Google is that when you needed to search for results in a different country, all you needed to do was change the domain tag. Google has decided it does not want to do that anymore shares the Verge in the article, “Google No Longer Lets You Change Domains To Search Other Countries.”
Google, instead, will deliver localized results based on your location.
If you need to access international results, however, the option can be changed on the settings menu on the bottom of google.com. Yes, you have to look for it, but it is there. Why does Google want to do this?
Google says it’s making the change because one out of five searches “is related to location,” and the company feels it’s critical to offer local information to provide the best results. The feature seems to be tailored most toward travelers: Google says that if you visit another country, it’ll automatically serve results local to where you’re visiting, then switch back again as soon as you arrive home. Before, if a traveler had kept typing in their home country’s Google domain, they may not have gotten what Google sees as ideal search results.
Before you think this is another way Google is trying to control search content, apparently Alphabet Inc. has already been doing this with YouTube and Gmail. The procedure has just been carried over to search results, but at least there is a way out of the localized content.
Whitney Grace, December 6, 2017
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