Today, Google announced that it will no longer use country code top-level domains for search. Instead, all search services will be performed at google.com, and local results will be provided automatically. For example, this means that users in the UK will no longer see the address google.co.uk in their browser address bar. Google URLs with these domain endings will now redirect to the main google.com address.
Google started using location information to automatically provide geo-based search results in 2017. Thanks to this change, it didn’t matter if you entered a query into a country code URL or google.com; you would always see a version of the results for the location you were physically in. Today’s announcement seems to bring this initial action to an end by terminating these ccTLDs.
“It’s important to note that while this update will change what people see in their browser address bar, it will not affect how Search works or how we meet our obligations under national law,” Google said in its announcement.
