Changing the state setting in Google Scholar

November 10, 2013 8:41 AM

I use Google Scholar to look for court cases. For some reason, for the last few months the options at the bottom of the search box have been as shown in the extended area. It used to be that the last entry would be "Michigan courts," as that is where I live. But the choice now is always "California courts." Even if I take the several (annoying) steps needed to select Michigan courts, it defaults back to California courts the next time. Does anyone know how this behavior can be changed?

[ ] Articles    [x] Case law 
[ ] Federal courts  [ ] California courts 

posted by yclipse to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Are you using the same device for these searches? It sounds like you're not storing the cookie that keeps this info, or that your location service is disabled. Try these steps, in this order:
1. Clear your cache and cookies completely.
2. Make sure you browser is enabled to accept first party cookies (it shouldn't require a third party cookie, but you might try allowing those too just to see if it helps).
3. Check that google can use your location and/or I think you can just set the location in your settings if you are logged into a google account while all this searching is happening.
posted by gubenuj at 9:00 AM on November 10, 2013

Bookmark the page you get to once you select "Michigan courts" and use that as your starting point for the next time you search. I just tried that URL in an Incognito window and it went straight to the Michigan courts search. (I'm in California, and got California courts as the default at first, BTW.)
posted by zsazsa at 10:30 AM on November 10, 2013

This is set by the URL parameter, in your case, "&as_sdt=4,23" which corresponds to Michigan (as in zsazsa's provided link). If you save a bookmark with that as the URL it should be the default regardless of cookie. (You may have saved one with "&as_sdt=4,5", which would give you California courts every time.)

If you are getting it on a plain URL (scholar.google.com), the internets may be resolving your IP address to a California-based ISP, just as all AOL requests go through Vienna, VA (in my case, IP location detection always places me in Madison rather than the city I'm in 40 miles away). It's just one of those things that's certain enough for general convenience but not certain enough to be wholly relied on. (See also: country/language detection when you go to google.com from a foreign location.)

I just checked my own cookie and it does not appear to change based on the "Select courts..." setting. So it isn't even stored. Use the URL as I suggested.
posted by dhartung at 2:27 PM on November 10, 2013