Google is changing the URL of its search engine for billions of people

Google is making a huge change to the most famous and widely used search engine in the world. And it is the global nature of Google search, and the internet in general, which is at the heart of the change.

For a very long time, Google has used different URLs for its search engine in different countries — google.co.uk in the UK, google.es in Spain, for instance. But no more. The company has announced that different country code top-level domain names (ccTLD) are no longer needed and will not be used.

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Google says that everyone using its search engine will be redirected to google.com, regardless of where they are in the world. That’s not to say that the old URLs will stop working or cease to exist, just that everyone will see google.com in the address bar of their browser.

Announcing the change, Google says:

Over the years, our ability to provide a local experience has improved. In 2017, we began providing the same experience with local results for everyone using Search, whether they were using google.com or their country’s ccTLD.

Because of this improvement, country-level domains are no longer necessary. So we’ll begin redirecting traffic from these ccTLDs to google.com to streamline people’s experience on Search. This change will be rolled out gradually over the coming months, and you may be prompted to re-enter some of your Search preferences in the process.

Google stresses that the change will not stop it from showing users “locally relevant search results”. The company also points out that there will be no changes to “how we handle obligations under national laws”.

Image credit: Muhammad Sajjad / Dreamstime.com