Google is integrating many of the international domain names that led to Google.com, eliminating Japan and Russia for sites like Google..co.co.jp and Google.ru, as the company says it no longer needs so-called “country code top-level domains” to provide local search results.
“Over the years, our ability to deliver a local experience has improved. In 2017, we started giving everyone the same experience for everyone who uses search, whether they use Google.com or CCTLD in their country,” the company said on the search giant’s product blog.
It continues to add: “Domain names at the national level are no longer needed due to this improvement. So we will start redirecting traffic from these cctlds to Google.com to simplify people’s experience with search. This change will be rolling out over the next few months and may prompt you to re-enter some search preferences in the process.”
Google says the change will happen in the next few months, and Google’s search function will work properly no matter what people see in the address bar. “It also won’t change how we deal with national laws,” the company added in a blog post.
Google’s search business is under scrutiny – the company’s search business was declared monopoly by a U.S. federal judge, and the Justice Department advised the company to sell its Chrome business. In the UK, Google may also face $6.6 billion in antitrust lawsuits.
