If you are from the United States and have been visiting another country lately or if you are from another country and want to access google.com you might have noticed that you are automatically getting redirected to a country code domain of Google. Users from France for instance are redirected to Google.fr automatically.
There are two easy ways to fix that, to select Google.com – or any other Google domain – as your main Google domain. If you are currently redirected to a Google country domain you can click on the “Go to Google.com” link below the search mask. The link is translated in the countries language. When you click that link you are redirected to Google.com and a cookie is set that will load Google.com for as long as the cookie is set.
The second possibility is to bookmark the Google Web HP website which gives users access to Google.com without redirecting them to their country domain. Please note that setting the language to English in the preferences does not mean that you are automatically taken to Google.com from then on.
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27 Responses to “Why is Google.com redirecting me to another Google domain ?”
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[...] It turns out all I had to do was click a link on the lower right of the page that said “Go to Google.com”. It wasn’t very prominent positioned, so I wasn’t able to find the link until I went to Yahoo and searched for “why is google redirecting me to France”. I found a page that told me about the Google.com link. [...]
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[...] has also been experiencing this problem, as well as a few readers over at Martin Brinkman’s Google Hacks [...]
http://www.google.com/ncr also redirects to the Google (US) site.
EDIT: Re-reading your article now – the link @ the bottom is indeed the same ncr link.
Maybe NCR = No Country Required?
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Regards,
Sparx
Hmm. Maybe Sparx was right about NCR. Maybe Google is trying to reduce the .com server load / redirecting users to the nearest google server.
While we are talking about google is there a reason your site search does not work any longer.
our client does not have permission to get URL /custom?domains=www.ghacks.net&q=router&sa=Google Search&sitesearch=www.ghacks.net&
amp;client=pub-5406364303442190&forid=1&channel=4757198711&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&
cof=GALT:#467aa7;GL:1;DIV:#ffffff;VLC:467aa7;AH:center%3
BBGC:ffffff;LBGC:FFFFFF;ALC:467aa7;LC%3
A467aa7;T:000000;GFNT:467aa7;GIMP:467aa7;FORID:1&hl=en from this server.
That’s nice.
But can you take it one step further – how can I set the google search in my FF search bar to search on google.com and not google.co.il?
It’s driving me crazy.
Yogi I guess you can search on google.com if you have set it that way, that means if a cookie is set to use Google.com instead of Google.co.il.
Is that the case ?
Enigma the issue has been fixed.
@Yogi: Depending on the version of Firefox you have, this might or might not work.
This is valid for Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Windows.
Ensure that Firefox is completely closed.
Open the folder “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins”
There might be multiple XML files present. Open google.xml in Notepad or some other plain text editor.
Search for all instances of “google.co.il” and replace with “google.com”. Save and close. Start Firefox now and select Google from the drop down list in the search box and enter a search query to test.
Does the above now make sure that you’re no longer being driven crazy? ;-) Please report results. YMMV.
This happened to a friend who had a proxy server set – the proxy was located overseas, so he was unable to access Google.com without it redirecting him to a localized page.
Hey Martin, how come when I click my (missing) avatar above, it sends me to:
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/cutegirlblog/
This looks like a spam page, her sidebar is full of “make money fast” schemes.
Mike it is not redirecting me !
Can you take a look at the WordPress plugin’s code? I didn’t want to leave a third comment for you, but my icon (and the URL it linked to) changed shortly after I left that comment.
As I said earlier, it is displaying correctly for me.
Right, me too, but it wasn’t at first. In your WordPress plugin for MyBlogLog avatars, it probably has someone’s profile as the default link – not sure if that matters to you, but it would concern me, as the profile linked to by default is kinda spammy.
Click on Enigma’s (missing) avatar above, and you’ll see what I mean – third comment from the top.
Mike now I know what you mean. The plugin redirected to a dynamic page of mybloglog, maybe to a place of the user of the day or something like that. I changed the link to simply point to the homepage instead.
Sparx – thanks for trying to help.
For some reason, after a few days of normal use I began to get results straight from google.com.
I did not do anything so i have no idea how this happened.
Maybe google figured it out by itself?
In any case thanks for helping. i printed out your advice so that if it happens again i will try it.
LOL, to stop the redirection all you need to do is click on Google.com underneath the google page.
Hi, I am using Windows Vista with explorer 7. For a month or longer now whenever I am reading at a website, enter my password or just surfing, I am suddenly sent to a google page. I dont want to go to a page I did not select. I have tried in vain to contact Google. I do not wish to use FireFox because it is sub par. What can I do to put a stop to this? I just want to read in peace. It interferes with my work as well. The page jumps to a dead google page even when I don’t click anything. Is someone on the other end doing this? If so, for what reason?
Luz it is hard to tell without further information, for example the google pages that you are send to, add-ons that are installed in Internet Explorer, other software running in the background. I would try to use an alternative browser just to see if it happens there as well to know if it’s an IE problem or a system wide problem.
hi guys,
sorry, but this redirecting problem isn’t exclusively a google or an ie or a vista problem!!!
i had this problem with all those different preconditions:
windows vista
windwos xp proffessional
firefox
internet explorer
from google.com > google.jp (japan)
from skype.com > skype.jp
…and once in a while other websites as well…
…AUTOMATIC redirections from english language sites to japanese language sites!
… and -.- … OF COURSE i set A L L my language/country changing options/possibilities on my pc (windows AND browsers) to english/usa…
…to no avail -.-
any ideas would be VERY welcomed :-)))
thanks in advance to anyone who is trying to tackle this problem *g*
once again: it doesn’t happen often…
… H O W E V E R… it’s N O T restricted to just one special site (google, skype, …) or one browser (firefox, ie, …) or one type of windows (xp, vista…)… not even to one country/isp-provider, as i in japan have been experiencing the same problems like martin (who started this thread) in france
-.-
…so, up to now the only constant seems to be windows itself, as in all cases a windows operating system was used…
i hereby declare the brainstorming session open *g*
ooops, sorry… the ‘france’ problem, that i mentioned before, was not from martin, the initiator of this thread, but from another thread in another forum, that i’ve read shortly before this thread… however problem remains unchanged ;-)
To fix the annoying auto-redirection on chrome, click the Customize button (the one that looks like a wrench) -> Options -> Basics tab, on Default Search hit manage, and add a new search with the following URL:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
Good luck :)
Thanks, Peter, for the reference to my “Why is Google sending me to France?” post. In that post I was ultimately trying to suggest that Google’s computers were misreading my NY Verizon IP address as originating in France.
I came to suspect this after receiving a call from my bank’s security division stating that they had detected someone in France trying to access my bank accounts. Further investigation reveled that their computers had misidentified my IP address as being a French address instead of a NY USA address. The computers had misread the address.
In the instance I discussed, I think the error was on the client or Google side. I also think that if I had logged into my Google account that the postal code info in my account would have directed my search results correctly.
You can read more at http://www.skylarknetworks.com/blog/2008/11/question-for-verizon-internet-users/
Hi, Martin! I love reading your blog posts! Keep up the good work, and keep the information coming.
hi guys i have a huge problem …
i live in the US and everytime i go to MSN or Google, the website is set to Korean. Then if I type in google.com, it redirects me to google.com.kr
also, when I go to MySpace.com, all the ads that I am getting is also in Korean. What’s going on?
Thanks this helped.
My google.com kept going to google.co.kr
right under the search bar are a couple of links in korean. to the right is one that says (in Eng) Go to Google in English. click on that. done.
Thanks to everyone on this page. Helped a ton.
Google is redirecting me to another google domain and is overriding my default domain and it is really pissing me off. Yes I know that I can easily click on the google.com icon but then I have to resect my preferences all the time – Nothing pisses me off more than a company making these decisions for me and overriding what I want. If I wanted to go to another country domain I would set that as my default!
So I have changed my default page away from google – Google – you must be listening to the Chinese too much these days as it seems they are running your company.
if you have google toolbar:
go into :
tools
add-ons
google toolbar
options
features
search box settings
pick a region from the “search google site: ” option and this should fix the very annoying problem