Is search engine localization making us lose out on global information?

antowan

antowan

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Is search engine localized search results boxing South Africans into a small content segment of the world wide web?

International results do show lower in the list but are we missing content folks in the USA might well see but we cant?

I cannot find a feature where to turn it off in my favorite search engine, Google.

Is there such a feature or is it something we might have to petition for somewhere in their managerial ranks?
 
I think so to sometimes, and no, I don't know of anyway to "turn off" the localization :(
 
Yes it does. Fravia did a write up on it and how to get your local version always,
otherwise just type in Google.com.

(BTW if you don't know WHO Fravia is you haven't been on the web LONG enough :) )

http://www.searchlores.org/google.htm

Here's how:

DIFFERENT IPs, DIFFERENT DATACENTERS (even if it does not dance: hiccups):
You will often receive different results from google depending on the ip you search from (try the same search with a couple of proxies). When you access google from a different name server you may be sent to a different google data centre. This may also happen when you repeat a search over time.

Today (1 february 2003): using a proxy (4840) searching directly (4860) 216.239.37.100 (see next finding) (4850)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GOOGLE direct (whenever you are 'stuck' on a crappy MSIE-cookied PC):

http://ww.google.com (Note: only two "w")

This was for a while very useful whenever you were 'stuck' on a national-flawed google.
Now you have to use http://www.google.com/intl/en/ to bypass national crap-googles.
Note that you can put a specific line into your host file ("66.102.7.104 g") or ("66.102.9.99 g") and *THAT datacenter* of google will show up whenever you type "g" into the location bar.
Note that you can use the same trick with everything else, check the lore of the HOSTS scrolls.

Direct googles

They follow patterns: a lot have 64.233, 66.120 or 216.239, then one ODD number, and a second one that is around 100 (98/99/100/102/103/104/105/106/107)

Note that you can always choose between, say,
http://66.102.7.104
http://66.102.7.104/search
http://66.102.7.104/advanced_search

The 64.233s...

The 64.233s...

64.233.161.98 ~ http://64.233.161.98/ Checked 2/10/2004
64.233.161.99 ~ http://64.233.161.99/ Checked 2/10/2004
64.233.161.102 ~ http://64.233.161.102/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.161.103 ~ http://64.233.161.103/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.161.104 ~ http://64.233.161.104/ Checked 2/10/2004
64.233.161.105 ~ http://64.233.161.105/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.167.98 ~ http://64.233.167.98/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.167.99 ~ http://64.233.167.99/ Checked 2/10/2004
64.233.167.102 ~ http://64.233.167.102/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.167.103 ~ http://64.233.167.103/ Not working 2/10/2004
64.233.167.104 ~ http://64.233.167.104/ Checked 2/10/2004
64.233.167.105 ~ http://64.233.167.105/ Not working 2/10/2004


The 66.102s...

66.102.7.104 ~ http://66.102.7.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
66.102.9.99 ~ http://66.102.9.99/advanced_search Checked 2/10/2004
66.102.9.104 ~ http://66.102.9.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
66.102.11.104 ~ http://66.102.11.104/search Checked 20/03/2004


The 216.239s...

216.239.33.100 ~ www-ex.google.com ~ 216.239.33.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.35.100 ~ www-sj.google.com ~ 216.239.35.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.37.100 ~ www-va.google.com ~ 216.239.37.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.37.104 ~ http://216.239.37.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
216.239.39.100 ~ www-dc.google.com ~ 216.239.39.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.41.104 ~ http://216.239.41.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
216.239.51.100 ~ www-ab.google.com ~ 216.239.51.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.51.104 ~ http://216.239.51.104/advanced_search? Checked 27/03/2004
216.239.51.106 ~ http://216.239.51.106/ Checked 2/10/2004
216.239.51.107 ~ http://216.239.51.107/ Checked 2/10/2004
216.239.53.100 ~ www-in.google.com ~ 216.239.53.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.53.104 ~ http://216.239.53.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
216.239.57.100 ~ www-cw.google.com ~ 216.239.57.100 Not working 20/03/2004
216.239.57.104 ~ http://216.239.57.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
216.239.57.105 ~ http://216.239.57.105/ Checked 2/10/2004
216.239.57.106 ~ http://216.239.57.106/ Checked 2/10/2004
216.239.57.107 ~ http://216.239.57.107/ Checked 2/10/2004
216.239.59.104 ~ http://216.239.59.104/search Checked 20/03/2004
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
What's also interesting is HOW DEEP IN RESULTS you can go. You can't get all 5 million whatsit results for "baseball" (example) but you can only go so deeply, there are tricks
to go a bit deeper, Fravia's SearchLores explains how.

http://www.searchlores.org/yoyo1.htm
 
Last edited:
Lately I've been surprised to notice a South African result so high up in Google - but then again it has often been more useful than surrounding results. I mean how often are localised results actually going to be a problem? Sure maybe when researching things - but then I would imagine that the system is designed so that non-local searches don't take this into account as much as it otherwise would.
 
I didn't think it was so difficult to get non-localised searches. I know google.com automatically uses your local version, but there's a link at the bottom to always use the international version, isn't there?

Or does that still provide somewhat localised results?

I normally use google.co.za for local stuff, and google.com for others.
 
HavocXphere said:
Yeah, its annoying the hell out of me.

http://www.google.com/ncr gives true results.
Click to expand...

It doesn't.

On http://72.14.207.99/search?hl=en&q=baseball
I get: 251,000,000 results.

Using /ncr I get: 229,000,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=baseball

Using Google.co.za I get: 233,000,000 results
http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&q=baseball&meta=

To get the genuine Google.com's IP address I used a US based,
PING site and pinged Google.
http://centralops.net/asp/co/Ping.vbs.asp
 
Last edited:
CathJ said:
I didn't think it was so difficult to get non-localised searches. I know google.com automatically uses your local version, but there's a link at the bottom to always use the international version, isn't there?

Or does that still provide somewhat localised results?

I normally use google.co.za for local stuff, and google.com for others.
Click to expand...

Still localised.
 
Would be interesting to know what people are searching for that returns different information. I know that China's Google returns a very different set of image results if you search for Tiananmen Square than what the rest of the world sees.
 
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