Up to until today, if you wanted to run a Google Search in another country or perhaps in another language. It was as simple as typing Google into your address bar using the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for that country, and the search result will be unique to the specific country.
This trick is particularly common with individuals living away from their home countries, who would like to get the Google search result page as they would if they were back home. Going forward, it will no longer be possible to get the search result meant for a particular country, in which you are not presently located.
Google clarified this in a blog post, stating that they are changing the way it labels country services in Search. Going forward, Google Search results will be tailored only to your current location, the type of domain you are using, notwithstanding.
That is to say, suppose you are a Kenyan currently residing in the U.K. and would like to get the Google Search result for Kenya. Until today, you would have typed Google.co.ke and get Search results from Kenya. With the changes Google has made, no matter which ccTLD you type accompanying Google, you will still get Search results for Google.co.uk.
The reason Google gives for this changes is that one out of five search results were already related to user’s current location. Hence, it reckons that the user’s current location should be the most significant deciding factor when querying information that is location-sensitive.
Say you live in Kenya and decided to go for a trip to Egypt to see the pyramids. You will definitely need a place to stay and when you are searching for hotels in – take, for instance, Cairo – Google will query that information based on location.
So what do you do if you really want the search result for a different country?
Well, there is another route that will still give you the Google search result for another different country from your present location. However, you will have to dig deep into the Google settings menu as it is hidden deeply.
