Google is making a big change that most people probably won’t ever spot. Google Search will soon phase out country-specific domains that have been used by billions of people around the world since the search engine’s introduction.
For example, those in the UK will no longer see google.co.uk and will instead be redirected to google.com if they try to access the country code top-level domain name (ccTLD). That’s the case for all country-specific codes from .ac for Ascension Island to .zw for Zimbabwe.
Announced on the company’s blog, the rollout will happen gradually over the coming months. Google has yet to give us a clear timeline on when to expect changes, but it says those who use country-specific URLs may need to re-enter their preferences when it happens.
In 2017, Google moved to make searches more relevant for everyone regardless of which version of Search they used. It was instead based on a user’s location data rather than the ccTLD. Almost eight years later, the company now believes the changes have worked well enough to do away from the ccTLD method altogether.
Source: Google Search Will Soon Ditch Country-Specific Domains
