5 ms·

Here is a slightly different question, how do you get "no country redirect" to stick reliably? I cant begin to describe how annoying it is that I am presented

Here is a slightly different question, how do you get "no country redirect" to stick reliably? I cant begin to describe how annoying it is that I am presented with a different language when travelling to a different country. All I ever want is Google in English but it keeps going back to a localized search regardless of the many times that I choose "google in english"

avar 15y ago
I suppose you know about http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr ? It works some of the time. Some of the time it doesn't, e.g. now when Google has custom logos I'll get a search term in Dutch (I'm in The Netherlands) when I click on it, even though I'm using google.com in English when doing so.
- newman314 15y ago
  Yes, I know about about /ncr but its hard/impossible to set that on a mobile device Also, it only works sometimes.
  - newman314 15y ago
    As yet another aside, has anyone else noticed how it is pretty much impossible to set SafeSearch to off without being logged in? Trying to set the cookie just does not seem to stick
    - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
      If you want, you can set "&safe=on" or "&safe=off" at the end of the url.
Sephr 15y ago
It's a shame how Google completely disregards your HTTP Accept-Language header. If they didn't, this would be much less of a problem.
- bhrgunatha 15y ago
  This annoys me more than anything - not just google, but for a large and growing number of sites. They completely ignore your browser settings and select language based on IP address. I installed the google international search plugin from mycroft which has solved my problem with google - but still suffer the myriad of other sites that ignore my browser's config.
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  I think in the past we saw a lot of people with their Accept-Language header set wrong, which is why we haven't used it. But we've been having a good discussion internally about the "my language won't stick" issues raised on this thread.
  - Sephr 15y ago
    How practical would it be to initially trust Accept-Language but also prominently display a link to change to the language detected through IP geolocation (with an easy way to hide/decline the link)?
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
Good question. I just saw an expert in the hallway and asked him. The basic answer is that your preference is stored in a cookie, so the preference would be forgotten if you're clearing cookies. If you still have the same cookie and yet the "no country redirect" isn't sticking, that's a bug we could dig into. By the way, I asked why the "no country redirect" isn't stored with your Google account rather with a cookie. The main reason he gave was that whether to do a country redirect is one of the first things we decide, and it's faster to use a cookie for that than to go looking up the user's account setting. Or at least, cookies have been faster up until this point. Hope that helps explain things.
- newman314 15y ago
  I regularly see this without clearing cookies, so yes, I would consider this a bug. There seems to be no discernible pattern as to why it works in one session, suspend laptop, go somewhere else and it stops working. Or it'll work twice in a row and when I return location a (both in the same foreign country), it stops working.
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    Interesting. HN isn't ideal for debugging, but if you wanted to send cookies or IP addresses (e.g. via Twitter), I could see if someone could look into it.
    - computermacgyve 15y ago
      Use: http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr to disable. NCR=no country redirect. I've set this as my homepage and not had any issues
      - mrspeaker 15y ago
        FANTASTIC TIP! This drives me (and 3 co-workers who will want to buy you a beer) insane - I travel a lot, and use proxies - so google is constantly swapping languages on me. Though it makes me less worried about them collating all my personal information if they can't figure out I didn't suddenly learn to speak German ;)
SergeyHack 15y ago
I reported this localization problem years ago. The best way is to take language from browser headers, like a lot of other sites do. For some reason responsible googlers were ignoring my proposal.

avar 15y ago

I suppose you know about http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr ? It works some of the time. Some of the time it doesn't, e.g. now when Google has custom logos I'll get a search term in Dutch (I'm in The Netherlands) when I click on it, even though I'm using google.com in English when doing so.

newman314 15y ago
Yes, I know about about /ncr but its hard/impossible to set that on a mobile device Also, it only works sometimes.
- newman314 15y ago
  As yet another aside, has anyone else noticed how it is pretty much impossible to set SafeSearch to off without being logged in? Trying to set the cookie just does not seem to stick
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    If you want, you can set "&safe=on" or "&safe=off" at the end of the url.

Sephr 15y ago

It's a shame how Google completely disregards your HTTP Accept-Language header. If they didn't, this would be much less of a problem.

bhrgunatha 15y ago
This annoys me more than anything - not just google, but for a large and growing number of sites. They completely ignore your browser settings and select language based on IP address. I installed the google international search plugin from mycroft which has solved my problem with google - but still suffer the myriad of other sites that ignore my browser's config.
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
I think in the past we saw a lot of people with their Accept-Language header set wrong, which is why we haven't used it. But we've been having a good discussion internally about the "my language won't stick" issues raised on this thread.
- Sephr 15y ago
  How practical would it be to initially trust Accept-Language but also prominently display a link to change to the language detected through IP geolocation (with an easy way to hide/decline the link)?

Matt_Cutts 15y ago

Good question. I just saw an expert in the hallway and asked him. The basic answer is that your preference is stored in a cookie, so the preference would be forgotten if you're clearing cookies. If you still have the same cookie and yet the "no country redirect" isn't sticking, that's a bug we could dig into. By the way, I asked why the "no country redirect" isn't stored with your Google account rather with a cookie. The main reason he gave was that whether to do a country redirect is one of the first things we decide, and it's faster to use a cookie for that than to go looking up the user's account setting. Or at least, cookies have been faster up until this point. Hope that helps explain things.

newman314 15y ago
I regularly see this without clearing cookies, so yes, I would consider this a bug. There seems to be no discernible pattern as to why it works in one session, suspend laptop, go somewhere else and it stops working. Or it'll work twice in a row and when I return location a (both in the same foreign country), it stops working.
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  Interesting. HN isn't ideal for debugging, but if you wanted to send cookies or IP addresses (e.g. via Twitter), I could see if someone could look into it.
  - computermacgyve 15y ago
    Use: http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr to disable. NCR=no country redirect. I've set this as my homepage and not had any issues
    - mrspeaker 15y ago
      FANTASTIC TIP! This drives me (and 3 co-workers who will want to buy you a beer) insane - I travel a lot, and use proxies - so google is constantly swapping languages on me. Though it makes me less worried about them collating all my personal information if they can't figure out I didn't suddenly learn to speak German ;)

SergeyHack 15y ago

I reported this localization problem years ago. The best way is to take language from browser headers, like a lot of other sites do. For some reason responsible googlers were ignoring my proposal.