Stop Google.com Redirecting to Local Country or Language Version of Google
Traveling abroad can quickly become frustrating when you attempt a search on Google.com and discover you are redirected to the local countries variant. This is convenient for things like local search and Maps, but if you’re trying to find results in English while you’re in a non-english speaking country the redirect is annoying.
The solution is simple enough: use the alternate NCR Google URL. NCR stands for “No Country Redirect” and will always display Google.com in English, whether you’re in India, Brazil, Honduras, Germany, or anywhere.
- http://www.google.com/ncr – always goes to Google.com
You can use Google’s Language Tools to set a primary language for a specific Google account as well, but the NCR link to be much easier to remember and more flexible.
This a fairly general tip and it applies to all web browsers and all OS’s, whether you’re using a MacBook Air, iPad, iPhone, Windows PC, Android phone, or anything else.
LOL, I ran into this on vacation and I can’t speak a lick of Spanish. Never knew about NCR though, good thing to bookmark for the future
i am using encrypted.google.com instead and it’s definitely wont tie to local google.
Nice tip. I always have this problem since I travel internationally all the time. Wonder if there is a similar one for Yahoo?
I’m not from the USA, so I’ve never thought about this problem. Every country just has it’s own Google URL, so we just go to google.de, google.be, google.nl, google.fr, google.co.uk, google.is and so on. It doesn’t matter where I am, I’ve just set the Google URL of my own country as the start page in Safari, so Google is always in my own language.
I’ve never thought about people from the USA using google.com and being redirected. Isn’t there a google.us you can use?
No. I’ve just tested that, but when I go to google.us, I’m just directed to my local Google URL. Strange, I expected google.com to redirect to the local Google URL and google.us not to redirect and just to be in English, just like all other local Google pages are written in the local language.
This is annoying me so badly. For gods sakes, if I type in http://www.google.com than that´s where I want to go! The search results for different country google are often very different and don´t find what I need. Thank you for the tip, hopefully it will solve thys annoying problem.
A great tip. I live in Latvia and can’t stand the local redirect as I mostly research foreign markets and the insistent local setting was really in the way. Thanks for the great tips. What does the encrypted.Google do – same as Chrome incognito? I am also sick of the nosy ads.