Changing your nationality for Google

December 1, 2007 6:44 AM

How do I change my region settings in Google?

I'm a US citizen studying in Ireland and whenever I go to google.com I'm redirected to google.ie. In theory, this shouldn't be a problem, as google.ie has a "search the web" function separate from its "search only pages from Ireland". However, when I "search the web" a majority of the results are from the UK and Ireland.

To give a specific example, I type in "postgraduate study" and postgraduate options from the UK and Ireland appear. I type in "postgraduate study in America" and study abroad pages and American visa ads appear. Even when I do advanced search and search for pages only from the States, all of the results seem to assume I'm from the U.K. I've searched from http://america.google.com and from this website, http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/websites/google.com/, with the same results.

http://ask.metafilter.com/67011/Help-me-google
This person seemed to have a similar problem, but nobody really answered his question, which is: how do you get Google to think you're inquiring from Stateside short of changing your IP address with a proxy?

posted by Ndwright to computers & internet (15 comments total)

Forgot to mention: Even when I use a web-based proxy like Anonymouse the same thing happens.
posted by Ndwright at 6:56 AM on December 1, 2007

For me, going to www.google.com/ncr helps.
posted by Ms. Next at 7:01 AM on December 1, 2007

Oops, I just saw that that same website is mentioned in that previous question too. Apparently that doesn't work for you. But what does happen when you use that link?
posted by Ms. Next at 7:03 AM on December 1, 2007

Same results as america.google.com and the other website I mentioned, 7 results from the uk, 1 from Ireland, 2 from Australia.
posted by Ndwright at 7:08 AM on December 1, 2007

I get those same results from the Netherlands. Are you sure people in the USA see different results? Because if I use that link I gave above, and search for 'graduate studies' (and yeah, I know that's not what you're searching for) I do get USA-oriented results. Maybe it's a question of terminology (do Americans typically use different words for it than the UK, AUS, etc.) than technology? But I guess people doing that same search while in the USA can answer that.
posted by Ms. Next at 7:26 AM on December 1, 2007

i hope this isn't a non-answer for you, but i'm in Japan and the postgraduate study search from google.co.jp also seems heavy on the UK/IE stuff. Is it perhaps the case that these are actually the results?
(FWIW I am also an American and never use the term postgraduate - maybe that's coloring the results? In other words, I went to university and then graduate school.)
posted by whatzit at 7:27 AM on December 1, 2007

What happens if you click the "Go to Google.com" link in the bottom right of the search page?

I'm in the UK, and doing that here permanently switches off the redirect from .com to .co.uk. (You can reverse it by clicking an equivalent link)
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:29 AM on December 1, 2007

I think I found your answer right here. So it probably is a question of terminology, and the www.google.com/ncr link should give you the answers you're looking for for other queries.
posted by Ms. Next at 7:34 AM on December 1, 2007

Yeah.. I'm in the US and get australia, uk, ireland, and one general international page on the first page of results for "postgraduate study".

"Graduate School" gets me all American results.
posted by Jahaza at 8:02 AM on December 1, 2007

Which is to say I think it's a matter of terminology.
posted by Jahaza at 8:02 AM on December 1, 2007

I'm in America and here are my first 10 google results for "postgraduate study" (no quotes).


www.prospects.ac.uk/pg/ - 52k - Cached - Similar pages

www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/About_postgrad_study/why/p!eklFeFX

www.graduatecareers.com.au/content/view/full/123 - 14k -

www.postgrad.riverhall.co.uk/ - 38k - Cached - Similar

www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/ - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/ - 25k - Cached -

www.topuniversities.com/gradschool/ - 31k - Cached -

www.sussex.ac.uk/pgstudy - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

www.postgrad.ie/ - 79k - Cached - Similar pages

www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/ - 13k - Cached -
posted by 517 at 8:14 AM on December 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

I also think it's a matter of terminology.
But to answer your question anyway, use Google Suggest. It seems to be 'region free', or at least not UK specific.
posted by fiTs at 8:29 AM on December 1, 2007

I guess I've been in the British Isles too long, forgot "postgraduate study" wasn't a universal expression. Thanks, everyone.
posted by Ndwright at 10:55 AM on December 1, 2007

Make your Google shortcut/bookmark one to a Google.com search result page. Any search done from that page will then give you US results.

Example (I live in the UK):

If I go to Google.co.uk and search for food, the first to sites I get are the BBC Food microsite and the UK Food Standards Agency.
The resulting URL is www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=food&btnG=Google+Search&meta=.

If you then change the .co.uk to .com (and strip out the other stuff you don't need), you're left with www.google.com/search?q=food. That search now brings up the Food Network and Wikipedia. Now enter something in the search box of that results page, and you get the US version of the results.
posted by Ulleskelf at 11:27 AM on December 1, 2007

This is where the "site:" keyword comes in handy.

postgraduate study -site:uk -site:ie

postgraduate study site:edu
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 12:40 PM on December 1, 2007