[LINK] Google Re-Direction

[Ash Nallawalla]

> From: Roger Clarke

> Has anyone seen a good analysis of the games that Google's 
> been playing?

Old news.  They have done this in about a dozen countries.

> An attempt to call up:
> http://www.google.com
> results in unannounced re-direction to: 
> http://www.google.com.au presumably done on the basis of the 
> IP-address.

There is a "google.com" link below if you want the US Google.  But I use
the Google Toolbar, which also shows the PageRank for a given page and
lets me set my default Google to any country I choose.  You might also
be seeing the Google Dance when the three main indexes are in flux
(www2.google.com, www3.google.com) each month.

My default home page is the .com Advanced Search page, set to English
and 100 hits.  The simple search is for wimps. :-)

Google would take a book to explain, so I won't try.

> But enforced restriction or re-direction is a serious policy concern, 
> because it's a weapon of censorship, surveillance and control.  And 
> it's a lot worse if it's done covertly, as this has been.

Did you just notice this?  :-)  Most large ISPs have been using
transparent proxies for over a year and technologies such as Layer 3/4
switching which can restrict/redirect your destinations.  At my user
group we use Alteon SD3 switches to enforce a proxy rather than deal
with thousands of users who forget to set one.  Companies such as Akamai
have provided regional mirrors to reduce transoceanic data loads.  Some
web sites serve content based on the viewer's IP address.  I don't see
them as weapons of mass delusion.  More likely, weapons of marketing
domination.

Google may have any number of reasons but the obvious one for
regionalising output is for serving regional Adwords.  They do that by
your IP address anyway, if you use the .com but if you used .uk or .de
you would get their regional sponsored links (side and top).  The search
results should be identical.
 
> and stuffed them up?  There doesn't appear to be an email-address for 
> making reports to googlers, so I haven't tried contacting them).

There are many email addresses, some are in their help pages.  You don't
always get a reply.

I have become an unwitting Google optimisation expert in the course of
optimising my own pages (await APC magazine June 2003 issue) - search
Google for "crm consultant" :-)

- Ash