The regionality of a site in Google is important because it determines ranking advantages.
How to assign a region to a site in Google
There are many ways to assign a region to a site in Google.List of ways to assign a region for free through the Google panel and through internal optimization:
- Add your site to the Google database through My Business;
- On the contact information page, embed a map and indicate the location of one specific one;
- Specify the region using the h-geo microformat.
How to change region in Google
There are several ways to change the search region in the Google search engine:- Using the GET parameter in the address bar;
- By replacing geographic coordinates in Chrome.
How to change the search region in Google using the GET parameter
The search region in Google is changed by adding the GET parameter uule to the address bar in the URL of the search results page. The parameter contains the value of a specific region, code identifier.Formation of the identifier
Generating the value for the uule parameter:- Determining the canonical name of the region using the official Google service called Geographical Targeting. Link to service - Geographical Targeting;
- Calculation of name length;
- Definition of a special character based on the length of the canonical name;
- Converting the canonical name to base64. Name recoding service - base64;
- Assembling values into a string w+CAIQICI"secretkey""base64";
- Paste a URL into the address bar.
In total, the search region has been changed.
How to change region in Google using Chrome
You can set the search region in the Google search engine through your browser.Google's search engine determines the region automatically based on the following parameters:
- Search queries;
- Geographic location of the computer.
The coordinates of a geographic point can be taken from the Google.Maps service:
- Open cards;
- Set the desired location;
- Copy the coordinates from the URL.
Closing the inspector window means resetting the settings.
If you again select location accounting at the bottom of the search results and again send a request to the search results, the search results will be displayed taking into account the specified region.
In total, the issuing region is changed by changing the value of the GET parameter in the URL or coordinates line.
Website visibility in Google
You can remove the visibility of any site by region for free through the "Site Visibility" application.Service from MegaIndex free.
Application link -
Background - one of my friends came from Crimea to our city to study at the University. And he still had restrictions on the installation of applications and the operation of services that the corporation imposed on Google accounts for residents of the peninsula. In particular, when installing many applications, the error “This application is not available for installation in your country” popped up. In order to change the country in the Google Play Market on his Android phone, I took only 3 steps!
Step 1. If you have ever linked a card to a Google account or paid for the purchase of applications, music or videos on Google Play, you must first go to the Payment Center at: https://payments.google.com/payments/home#paymentMethods
Here you need to edit your card details. There is no need to delete it - just go to its parameters and change the address.
Then you need to go here - https://payments.google.com/payments/home#settings
Here you also need to look at what address is registered and change it to a new one.
If suddenly you have not one, but two addresses, then in order to change the country in Google Play, you must set your new address by default.
By the way, based on my experience, I note that these operations are best done from a computer. For some reason, not everyone can do this through a smartphone or tablet!
Step 2. Now you need to thoroughly clean the Play Market itself, since without this you won’t be able to change the country of your Google account - the system will stupidly read the old data. Go to the settings of your phone and select the “Applications” section. Here you need to find the Google Play Store or Google Play Market (on different versions of Android the service may be called differently, but the meaning does not change) and open its parameters:
Here you need to first clear the cache, then erase the application data and then, just to be sure, delete the application updates so that they can be downloaded again.
Step 3. Reboot your smartphone and launch Google Play again. You will be required to accept the license agreement again, but for the new country in which you are located. Changing the Google Play country should go without problems and now everything will work!
To get more relevant search results, give Google access to your location. If Google knows where you are, then, for example, by asking a query cafe, you will see a list of establishments nearby.
How to block Google's access to your location data
You can prevent Google from accessing your location data in your settings. However, you will still receive search results based on your IP address, recent searches, and location history. To turn off this data being sent to Google, go to Timeline in Google Maps.
When you use the Internet, your device transmits to us the address of your ISP, which is usually in the same region as you. Google uses this address to select results that interest you. You cannot prevent the transfer of information about the provider to various services.
How to indicate your home or work address
How to enable or disable geolocation
Advice. To quickly access geolocation settings, swipe down with two fingers from top to bottom of the screen, tap Location.
How to check and update location
In browsers like Chrome and Safari, you can see and update your location right on the search results page. The instructions below do not apply to the Google app.
- Do a Google search on your Android device.
- The bottom of the search results page tells you where you are located.
- To update your location, click Consider my location.
- If a pop-up window appears, click Allow to confirm permission to share location data with us.
Troubleshooting
If location data is unavailable, incorrect, or an error occurs, do the following:
- Make sure your Internet connection speed is fast enough.
- Check if it is enabled
Dear friends, I continue to publish materials within the framework.
Today I will talk about how to look at Google search results in different countries. This will be useful when choosing topics for future sites and studying competitors, as well as for analyzing search results and other tasks.
In the comments to the previous article in the series about English-language SEO, I saw a question about how you can view search results in other countries. I decided to answer it in detail in today's post.
In this article I do not touch on the topic of how to check positions in other countries, this is a different area. If you're interested, I made a large selection (many of the tools are great for monitoring positions in different countries):
The purpose of today's post is to show ways to see Google results in different countries in the browser.
In order for you to compare how much this or that method allows you to see the results as foreigners see them, I asked my friend from New York (I write this name without a hyphen, since there is no hyphen in the original) to take a screenshot of the results according to request "wordpress plugins". I’ll give you the screenshot itself (it was taken a few hours before the publication of this post):
1. Tool for previewing and diagnosing Google Adwords ads (Ad Preview and Diagnosis - Google AdWords)
The tool was created for previewing ads, but at the same time it is perfect for our task of viewing search results in a certain country and in a certain language.
In the settings, enter the desired query and select the country and language (you can specify not only countries, but also cities, states, provinces, and even geographic coordinates and postal codes):
Click the "View" button and get the top we are interested in:
As you can see, there are slight differences in the output. I will tell you why this happens at the end of this article.
2. Extension for Google Global browsers
Thanks to the kind people :) who created such a convenient and useful extension. It is available for the Mozilla Firefox browser:
When using the extension, there are two of the most cunning tricks 😉, which I will now share with you.
First, left-click on the extension icon and go to the “Show options” item (I show the example of the Google Chrome browser):
Leave everything else as default and click on the “Save” button.
On the same page you can add the search you need by clicking on the "Add new search" button:
The following form will open:
For example, let's set up a new search for the glorious city of Jacksonville in Florida, where I lived for several years (if necessary, you can use the tips that are on the right of this form):
To save, click on the Add button. A new search appears in the list of available ones when you click on the Google Global extension icon:
US Zip Code – postal code for cities in the United States. To find examples of indexes for the city you need, type the following query into Google:
city name zip code
You can also specify the state, since cities with the same name can be in different states:
city name state zip code
For example, you could use this query to find zip codes in Jacksonville, Florida:
Jacksonville FL zip code
The two-letter abbreviations of US states can be found on this Wikipedia page (ANSI column).
On the same Wikipedia page in the ISO column you can find state designations of the form US-FL, which we can use to add a search in the Google Global extension that will display results not by a specific city, but by state. To do this, add a new search and put the Florida state designation US-FL in the "Region ID" field, and the US country code in the "Country Code" field:
Click on the "Add" button and we can use the new search, which will display Google results for the state of Florida:
The second trick. If you simply type the desired query into Google, click on the Google Global extension icon and select the desired country:
Then Russian-language sites will also appear in the search results:
This is not at all what we need 😉 .
To avoid this, before using the extension, click on the gear icon in the Google search results and go to the “Languages” item:
Change the language there to English (or the one you need) and click the “Save” button.
After that, you can safely use the Google Global extension and look at the results of the country you are interested in :)
3. Google Search URL Parameters
Google results for any country can be seen by changing the parameters in the query string.
For example, if you paste the following request into the address bar of your browser:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en &q=wordpress+plugins&gl=us
Then we will get American Google results for the request “wordpress plugins” (US code is us, I highlighted it in red) for the English language (its code is en, I highlighted it in blue).
If you enter a query like this:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en &q=content+marketing+tools&gl=uk
Then we will see Google results in the UK (its code is uk) for the request “content marketing tools”.
Country codes can be found on this page.
As you may have noticed, the output language also needs to be specified. English is denoted by en, German by de, Spanish by es, and French by fr.
Language codes can be found on this page.
I will give another example for greater clarity and so that even beginners do not have questions and everything becomes clear. If you type this query:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=fr &q=content+marketing+tools&gl=fr
Then we will see Google results in France (its code is fr) for the request “content marketing tools” for the French language (its code is fr).
If you make a request like this:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=de &q=content+marketing+tools&gl=de
Then we will see Google results in Germany (its code is de) for the request “content marketing tools” for the German language (its code is de).
4. Google Advanced Search
Perhaps the easiest way. After typing the desired query in Google, click on the gear icon on the right and select “Advanced Search”:
We select the language and country we need. For example, I installed English and US:
Leave the rest of the settings intact and click the “Find” button.
After this, you will see results in the desired country, even though the search will be google.ru and the interface language is Russian:
Update: There is another way to view Google search results in other countries:
It has a button with detailed instructions for use.
I did not list paid methods, such as VPN and private proxies, since the listed methods are quite enough to view the results, and they are free.
You can also look at results for the USA through aol.com, but I don’t see the point in this, since the Google logo is visible to the right of the search bar and it’s better to use Google right away :)
Regarding the differences in output when using different methods, you need to consider the following points.
Google knows perfectly well what country and city your computer is in, what language and operating system are installed on it, and what browsers you have. It also knows and saves your history of search queries, from which IP and devices you accessed the Internet and many other points. Also, along with other factors, personalization of search results takes place.
That is, if we look at search results in another country, it may differ depending on the method we use. Even if you use a paid VPN or paid proxies, the results that you see and the results that an American will see may differ.
But for studying topics and analyzing output, the methods I listed are more than enough.
I wish you successful study of search results and fruitful work on your sites!
Dessert for today - a video shot by a quadcopter flying over dolphin articles:
Google, depending on the user’s region, produces corresponding results, which, for the same queries but from different regions, differ significantly. According to the Web Search Guide, Google automatically determines a user's location based on IP address, location history (unless it's turned off), or search history. Let's look at how you can check reliable data on organic search results from any country.
How to change your Google search country
Google has long ago decided on the easiest way to simply change the domain zone of the search engine and set up a redirect to the Google domain of the country that belongs to the user’s IP. But despite all the search engine’s tricks, there are several reliable ways to check the results of other countries.
#Google Global Extension
To use this plugin, you need to disable “Personalized search”, and also change the language of the search engine. Then we enter the query you are interested in in the search engine, go to the plugin settings and select the desired country and get search results for the region you are interested in. This plugin is available for Chrome and Firefox.
# Changing URL parameters in Google
My favorite option is to change the parameters in the url. Example: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=online+marketing&gl=us. the request will give you an American output (us) in English (uk) for the online marketing request. You can view country codes here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_domains. It no longer works.
To use the “advanced search”, click on the gear in the right corner and select the appropriate item. In additional settings you can select the region and language you are interested in. 
# GoogleAdwords
“Ad Viewing and Diagnostic Tool – Google AdWords” is also perfect for viewing the first page of search results. Follow the link: https://adwords.google.com/, enter the query and get the results of the first page. Here you can change the parameters:
- A country;
- Language;
- Device type.
# Change IP
You need to find out the proxy or VPN server of the country you need. You will need to find a free list of proxy servers and enter the desired IP in the menu.
Quite complicated, but in my opinion the best option. First you need to allow Google to take your IP location into account. At the bottom of the page you will see your location based on your search history, click “Set my location” and allow access to data in the pop-up window. 
Now an icon has appeared in the command line, which means that the site tracks location, and at the bottom of the search page it is shown - “Region - From this computer”, this data is determined by Google based on the IP address and by refreshing the page you get results for your region. 
To see Google results for another region, you need to know the geographic coordinates of the place you are interested in. This can be done in Google Maps or Yandex.Maps services. I use Yandex.Maps to search, they show coordinates on the page itself, but in Google you need to look for them in the URL page: 
When you have found out the necessary coordinates, return to the search results page and go to Developer Tools— by pressing the F12 button or the Ctrl+Chift+I button combination. Next, go to Customize and control DevTools > More tools > Sensors. In the “Sensors” tab, in the “Geolocation” item, select “Custom location...” and enter our coordinates (latitude – Latitude and longitude Longitude). Then click on “Take into account my location” again (maybe “Update” instead). 
Now we enter the search query again and see the results for the locality whose geographic coordinates we entered.