Google is making a significant change to its Search platform. According to an announcement from the tech giant, it will no longer utilise country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) such as Google.co.in for search queries. These domains were originally intended to provide users with more relevant local search results. However, as Google's ability to deliver localised experiences has improved over the years, these country-specific domains have become unnecessary. Starting April 15, the company will begin redirecting traffic from these ccTLDs to google.com in order to streamline the user experience.
Google first started offering consistent local results for everyone using Search in 2017, regardless of whether they accessed google.com or their country’s ccTLD.
This change will be implemented gradually over the coming months, and according to the company’s blog post, some users might need to re-enter their search preferences during this transition. It’s worth noting that while this update will alter what appears in users' browser address bars, it won’t change the functionality of Search or affect how Google complies with national laws.
Meanwhile, during its negotiations to comply with the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), Google encountered several inaccurate reports that significantly exaggerated the value of news content to its operations. In response to these claims and to provide regulators with more concrete data, Google initiated a public experiment aimed at assessing the value of this content by removing European news results for 1 percent of users across eight EU countries.
The findings revealed that European news content in Search has no measurable impact on Google's advertising revenue. Specifically, when this content was removed, there was no noticeable change in Search ad revenue, along with a less than 1 percent (0.8 percent) decline in usage. This suggests that any decrease in usage was primarily derived from queries that yielded minimal or no revenue.
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