Google has announced a structural change in its search service that ends more than two decades of use of local domains. We talk about everything that goes beyond google.comsuch as google.es. Well, the change and all the traffic that access these variants will automatically redirects to google.com.
The company justifies this decision ensuring that its ability to offer relevant results at the local level has improved significantly, to the point that maintaining specific domains per country is no longer necessary. As explained in their official blog, this measure seeks to “simplify the search experience” without altering the operation of the search engine or the legal commitments assumed in each jurisdiction.
Although the technical impact of this modification will be minimal, since The results will continue to adapt to the user’s contextit is still a significant change in the way millions of people have accessed Google for years. As they remember in some specialized media, since 2017 the search experience was already essentially the same in google.com as in any CCTLD (domain of higher level by country).
The transition will be applied gradually over the coming months, during which time some users could see how certain search preferences are restored and they are asked to configure them again. Even so, Google ensures that the location and language of the results will continue to respond to the place from which the search is performed.
It is worth mentioning that the use of domains by country not only had a technical function, but also symbolic, since it allowed users to identify a “more own” Google, with results related to the local language and context. This approach helped the expansion of the search engine in its early years, offering a digital entrance door adjusted to each region.
With the passage of time, however, Fragmentation has become unnecessary: Advances in artificial intelligence, personalization and automatic location have made the URL used irrelevant to the user’s history, its location and their preferences.
