Help me google

July 14, 2007 10:04 PM

How can I get North American Google results while I'm in Mexico?

I'm in Mexico. It seems like I'm getting different google results than I would at home (in Calfornia). For one thing, there are many more responses in Spanish than I normally get. For another, the actual Google info on the page is all in Spanish. I guess they get that I'm in Mexico from the IP address? I'm kind of clueless about this stuff.

Anyhow, is there any way for me to get US results from here?

posted by serazin to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Near the bottom right of google.com.mx, there should be a link that says "Google.com in English" - use it. If not, going to http://www.google.com/ncr should do the trick, though there are probably a bunch of other ways you can do it, too.
posted by bunyip at 10:12 PM on July 14, 2007

http://www.google.ca?
posted by dhartung at 10:20 PM on July 14, 2007

Oh, sorry - I'm also presuming that you're in a cybercafe or similar, and not using your own computer. If you are using your own computer, then click on 'Preferences' from the English homepage to choose your language and save it in a cookie, thus recording your preference on that computer. After that, further visits to google.com (or from toolbars, etc.) should take you straight to the English page, with preference for English results, regardless of any IP geolocation tricks. Signing into any google-based account you have might do the trick, also. Of course, doing any of the above on a shared computer would be inconsiderate (or risky, if you sign in and don't sign out).
posted by bunyip at 10:25 PM on July 14, 2007

FYI, Mexico is in North America.
posted by brina at 12:26 AM on July 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

At least some classifications include Mexico in Central America. Many others include it in North America.
posted by grouse at 4:24 AM on July 15, 2007

bunyip has it. Though even without my muddling around in the preferences section, a single instance of opting for "Google.com in English" makes Google default to that (unless I purge my browser's cookies).
posted by donpedro at 5:55 AM on July 15, 2007

Oh my, yes, you're right donpedro. I didn't even think to test that. Okay, so to use the English interface without preserving the setting on a computer then you can use http://www.google.com/intl/en/. Ugh... so much typing! So yeah, google.ca is looking pretty good if you don't want to make life difficult for the next Spanish speaker to use the computer, though there might be a slight risk of getting more Canada-centric results on some queries (pure speculation here!).
posted by bunyip at 6:50 AM on July 15, 2007

I was disappointed to see that no one actually answered the question here. You can change the language, which does in turn change some of the results, but google is still going to see OP's IP is in Mexico and give him Mexican results.

I am currently working in the US for a Canadian company; and hence my IP is in Canada. My results are of course in English, but simple searches like "Health Insurance" annoyingly return Canadian results.

So changing language can be done, but you can not select your choice of national results. I would love for someone to correct me on that if possible.
posted by Slenny at 9:46 AM on July 15, 2007

I would love for someone to correct me on that if possible.

OK, consider yourself corrected. I'm in the UK I get different results when searching for, say [pants], at google.com/ncr versus google.co.uk versus google.ca.
posted by grouse at 9:51 AM on July 15, 2007

I'm coming from a Mexican IP and can confirm that a search for "Mexico" (chosen as a word common to both languages) gives very different results if I search from google.com.mx (where you get redirected to if you go to google.com without cookies) versus google.com/ncr. The results from /ncr are just what I'd expect to get if I were in the US.
posted by bunyip at 11:14 AM on July 15, 2007

And for the super-duper advanced method that will actually give you US IP is blossom. It's a program that uses Tor nodes to get an IP in a different area, rather than for anonymity.

I found the link through tor's faq, and I've been to their website before, but appears to be down now. :(
posted by philomathoholic at 2:31 PM on July 15, 2007

Thanks all! I'll try these suggestions.

(and ya, as soon as I posted the question I thought to myself - "Mexico is North America, isn't it." Doh.)
posted by serazin at 2:32 PM on July 15, 2007

Of course, google could just host www.google.us, you know, to be consistent. This is easily the worst part of the Google experience.
posted by effugas at 2:53 PM on July 15, 2007