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March 4, 2015

Google Hides Country Redirection Bypass Link

Search Engine Land reports that Google made it more difficult for non-US users to switch from their local Google site to Google.com.

Until now, you could switch to Google.com by clicking "use Google.com" at the bottom of the homepage. Google made a change and it now shows the "use Google.com" link only when you're redirected from Google.com to your country's Google site.


This way, most people will no longer see the "use Google.com" link. One workaround is to visit Google.com to see the link. Another option is to go to www.google.com/ncr, the same URL that used to the displayed by Google. "NCR" means "no country redirection", so the URL can be used to bypass Google's redirection.

Why would Google hide the link? Danny Sullivan suggests that the latest change could have something to do with the "Right To Be Forgotten" feature. "Google’s come under increasing pressure from both Canada and the EU to censor its results on Google.com in addition to censorship demands on country-specific versions."

I use Google.com because it has the latest features and it's more up-to-date.

2 comments:

  1. Seems that Google's NCR (No Country Redirect) parameter is not working anymore as of December 15, 2015.

    Luckily, you can still avoid Google's country redirects using the following new link instead:

    http://www.google.com/?gfe_rd=cr&gws_rd=cr

    Regards,
    Bassem Fanari
    mailto:bassemfanari@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. This link
    http://www.google.com/?gfe_rd=cr&gws_rd=cr
    no longer works either. Nor does
    https://www.google.com/ncr

    Both return location-related results to searches. Is there some new solution?

    ReplyDelete

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