What happened to Google’s Country specific search?

Country specific search was a specialty of Google search engine. But that might not remain so in the future. That is because Google is now taking away this feature. The change was first noticed by the SEO home blog. The blog brought to notice that the radio button for showing only results from UK was missing in the Google UK version.

When the country specific filter existed, the tabs “Google search” and “I am feeling lucky” were given under the search box. Below these tabs there were two radio buttons. One was for searching “the web” as a whole. The other one was for the country specific search. The button was “pages from UK”. But now these radio buttons are missing. All the buttons remain the same as before. So the search will always give the results from the web. Barry has explained it here.

The SEO home blog also brought to notice that the change in the country specific search option is not always there. The change is seen only when the Google Chrome version is used. While using Google Chrome also the country specific filter can be obtained. Only thing is that it is not a direct process. The user has to go to the search results page and then scroll down to the bottom of the page. At the bottom a link show only result for United Kingdom is given. If the user goes for that link, then he or she would get the search results just for UK.

This facility is more complicated than the older way. And so, not all users are liking the new way. Most people who have noticed the change are of the opinion that the link should be given from the first page itself so that time can be saved. But Google is going forward with the idea of test-dropping the link.

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