INSIGHTS•2 MIN READ
Why has Google hidden the "Pages from [Country]" button
fuzegraphics
Published on December 5, 2012
Published on Wealthy Affiliate — a platform for building real online businesses with modern training and AI.
Since Google Search changed its look recently the have hidden the "Pages from [Country]" button. I am not 100% sure but I would think for US based users this is not a problem but for other countries it is.
My website is based in South Africa and has a .co.za extension. Our Google Search page is google.co.za but when we do a search it does a global search at first. We have to then click the "Pages from South Africa" button to filter the search to local sites. This means we are now competing against the world for a good position.
Before their recent update the button was located on the left, easily visible and highlighted in Red so people looking for sites in South Africa could find them quickly. Now users have to go searching for it and for many people is not that easy to find, I even battled to find it at first...
What this means is that my site has basically just been demoted a whole lot further down the Google search ladder.
I must admit I find this pretty annoying as I get a lot of business from the local search results.
Anyone know why they have done this?
My website is based in South Africa and has a .co.za extension. Our Google Search page is google.co.za but when we do a search it does a global search at first. We have to then click the "Pages from South Africa" button to filter the search to local sites. This means we are now competing against the world for a good position.
Before their recent update the button was located on the left, easily visible and highlighted in Red so people looking for sites in South Africa could find them quickly. Now users have to go searching for it and for many people is not that easy to find, I even battled to find it at first...
What this means is that my site has basically just been demoted a whole lot further down the Google search ladder.
I must admit I find this pretty annoying as I get a lot of business from the local search results.
Anyone know why they have done this?
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