How To Disable Google Search Redirects

Many websites look up the IP address that you are connecting with, or other browser header information, to redirect you automatically to a language specific version of the website.

While those systems usually get it right, they are annoying for users who do not want to be redirected to a country specific domain name or different language version.

The main address of the search engine Google Search, located at google.com, redirects first time users automatically to a localized version of the search engine if it exists if the IP address lookup determines that the user is based in a different region or country.

You can click on the go to google.com link at the bottom to force the switch to Google.com. The information is saved as a cookie or the account if you are signed-in. You need to remain signed in on any device that you use to avoid being redirected, or set the cookie on any device if you are not signed in. The latter requires that you refresh the cookie if it expires as well.

Tip: Check out how to get Google Search results in a different language. It offers updated information.

Disable Google Search Redirects

Back in 2008 I posted a solution to the question Why is Google.com redirecting me to another Google domain?. The solution back then was to use a special url to load google.com without being redirected to a country specific search domain.

The url https://www.google.com/webhp still works as intended. Roman send me an email recently that described a second option which blocks the redirect completely and loads the standard Google search engine homepage.

If you load https://www.google.com/ncr you tell Google that you do not want to be redirected. The NCR stands for No Country Redirect.

Now, if you bookmark that domain name you will always end up on the default google.com search page. Google will automatically save a cookie on your computer that prevents redirects to other localized Google search engine domains. You can theoretically open google.com directly after this point as long as you keep the cookie on the system. If you want to avoid trouble at all, you may want to always use the ncr address.

It is not an ideal solution, considering that you cannot seem to use http://www.google.com/ncr as your browser's search engine for instance, but it works reasonably well if you bookmark the url and use that bookmark to open the Google search website.

Remove the no-redirect cookie

If you have used one of the special domains that prevent you from being redirected so that you can use google.com without hassle and want to undo that change, you need to remove the cookie to do so.

While you can now go ahead and delete it, you can alternatively select the "use Google" link at the bottom of the main page to to do so.

Now Read: Malware can also be responsible for Google Redirects

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