Keep getting redirected from .com to .ca!

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Keep getting redirected from .com to .ca!

most annoying thing about Google!

zarm777

4:31 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

This really drives me nuts. I deleted my cookies and now when I set my my home page to google.com I get redirected to google.ca ... I don't want to be at google.ca and I keep getting redirected. If this does not end I am going to put in a spam complaint for being redirected against my will, why not just ask first if I want the .ca, or give people an easy out of your redirect? I do not want pages from Canada, nor do I want anything in french. Please fix this.

Pegasus

4:33 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I assumed it didn't make any difference.

I would be peeved if it did though. :)

Rugles

4:38 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I agree, I find very frustrating to have google.ca as my default. I think you can avoid it if you go into the preferences and change it to 100 results and "open in new window". Plus if you put Advanced Google in your favourites (notice the Canadian spelling, eh).

I do these things and it seems to avoid the google.ca thing.

mykel

4:40 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Strange. I'm in Poland and by default I was redirected to the Polish version. But ever since I set my language to English it stays on google.com.

zarm777

4:44 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

well google.com is my favourite to eh...

After much annoyance I found that if I clicked on the .com link in the lower right of the .ca page it finally put an end to this redirect. Would be nice if there was some mention on the page as to how to fix this problem.

The Subtle Knife

5:02 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

After much annoyance I found that if I clicked on the .com link in the lower right of the .ca page it finally put an end to this redirect. Would be nice if there was some mention on the page as to how to fix this problem.

If you click in advanced search you can choice which country you search from.

[edited by: The_Subtle_Knife at 7:32 pm (utc) on Feb. 28, 2003]

giggle

5:21 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Same here in Thailand.

I enter www.Google.com and I end up in www.Google.co.th I can read Thai a wee bit, but give me a break Mrs Google.

c3oc3o

5:27 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Just use [google.us...] to stop being redirected.

allanp73

5:53 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

You can avoid being redirected by using the following as your homepage [google.com...]
(I hope they let me put this URL in here)

Batman

8:48 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've been annoyed by the same thing. However, I just noticed a link pointing at google.com in the lower right corner of my country redirect (Google.be). I don't remember seeing that before. Might our cries have been heard? ;) (in which case: thanks GoogleGuy!).

OntheEdge

9:09 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Seems there's several ways to fix it, but it really annoys me nonetheless.
If I want .ca, I'll type, .ca.
I think it's rude and very unprofessional.

GoogleGuy

9:56 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

We use cookies to store search preferences--things like "I want the .com instead of the .ca." You can reset your preference by looking for "Google.com" on the bottom line, all the way to the right. Just click there and it should set a preference cookie that says "always send me to the .com".

Hope that helps,
GoogleGuy

OntheEdge

10:06 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks,GG,no offence to you personally, but if merely viewing .ca once is how this started, I'll just remember not to do that again!

alxdean

10:35 pm on Feb 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I'm sure it is google breaking its own rules here. it is called cloaking.
So google does a reverse DNS lookup on your IP address, finds out which block in which country it belongs to and then sends you to the appropriate page unless you tell it expicitly otherwise.
Or even worse, it checks your country settings of your op and uses those to redirect.
could even try to cloak using the language of your browser.
in any case I'm convinced that they use cloaking to force browsers to a certain website and then only send you to another webpage if you set a cookie to do so. people who have cookies disabled are really screwed though!

The worst part of all this cloaking is when a website optimiser works in a different country: Here I am telling my client that he/she is in the top ten, no, better even, number one on a certain keyword phrase in msn.com thanks to all my efforts and hours (the ten minutes i spent on zeal adding it to the directory), only to have them tell me to get lost as I was seing fairies.
Well, I thought I was seing fairies when I looked at msn.com form their computer: they had a spanish version of IE and automatically look at the spanish version of msn.com. does not even change the address to msn.es. no, stays as msn.com but in Spanish, which of course skips the directory listings alltogether and I'm screwed.