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Google Chrome Redirecting Some UK Users to Google.com Instead of Google.co.uk

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googleukSome users in the UK are being switch to Google.com instead of using the default Google.co.uk when searching in Google Chrome.

It’s unclear why it is just Google Chrome users that are being affected. The redirects are happening even when Google.co.uk is set as the default search engine, and when users are either logged in or logged out of their Google account.

Of course, if this is happening to a lot of users, it could have much greater implications, especially since many users might not notice they are suddenly on Google.com instead of Google.co.uk.  Because many of the search results on Google.com, even when searching from the UK, are very much US-centric, this means that searchers are going to waste their time on sites that turn out to be for US users. Add to this, the fact that many UK websites are being pushed down further in the search results, which could mean those sites are losing out on traffic to sites that are leading the searchers needs. And lastly, this definitely isn’t good user experience.

Dave Naylor from Bronco is one of the affected users, on a Mac using Chrome. “I only have one machine that redirects me to the .com every time and it’s in the meeting room here. But I always manually edit the URL structure of the SERPS page to the co.uk so it doesn’t really affect me personally, but I can see it been in pain for users that are stuck in this deadly embrace if it’s their main machine that they use all the time.”

Patrick Altoft also noticed it.

Andrew Akesson  also was affected with this Chrome issue. “Over the past week I noticed that, as the result of an update to their servers, Google have started automatically sending users in the UK to Google.com. Previously it was impossible to do this unless you added ‘/ncr’ to the end of the google.com domain or amended the location in the URL string – the only people that would be looking to do this are SEOs!”

There was the possibility that it could possibly be “Right to be Forgotten” related, but many of the queries were for searches that would not trigger a “Right to be Forgotten” result. So it’s not a an attempt to get around that, as a result for the been removed due to “Right to be Forgotten” requests will still show up in Google.com, even though they been removed in Google.co.uk or another EU version of Google.

It is likely that it is the bug of some sort. However because it is very difficult for users to be able to switch back to Google.co.uk once Chrome decides Google.com is where they should be, it could really affect those users Google user experience and the results they find, especially if they tend to do a local searches for searches that could show UK businesses first.

Update: John Mueller from Google suggests affected users submit this form.  I have asked why this is only happening on some computers but not others that are on the same IP, and only in Google Chrome and not other browsers.  I will update again if there is an answer.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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Comments

    • I thought I was losing my mind! Glad it’s not just me that noticed this. Pretty annoying when I am trying to search for local queries… thanks a bunch Google!