The Easiest Ways to Change Search Location on Google (No Tools Needed)
Can you see Google results for virtually any location in the world? Yes!
Can you do this without a VPN or SEO software? Absolutely!
Is it complicated? Not at all. And in this guide, we’ll prove this. We’ve prepared X ways to help you change your Google location easily whenever you need. And the best part is that you won’t need any SERP location changer or other tool for any of the methods we list.
Now, enough talking — let’s get to the meat of it.
Contents
- SERP location change: 3 best options
- How to avoid personalization in your Google search results?
- Conclusion
SERP location change: 3 best options
While changing Google search country might seem complicated, it isn’t like that if you know what you’re doing. To simplify the whole process for you, we’ve selected our favorites below.
Today, we’ll focus on quick and easy manual options. Yet, of course, for agencies or large companies targeting many locations and keywords, the best solution is to use SEO software applicable to agencies. Still, in case you or your client want a quick check, here you go:
1. Change your Google search settings
This is the first and the easiest option. For it to work, simply follow these steps:
1. Type in any search query (literally), click on your Google account picture in the top-right corner, and select More settings.
Note: You won’t find this under your Google account picture from the Google search homepage (i.e., a start page where you see Google’s logo and search bar).
2. Click Other settings > Language and region.
3. Click Results region.
4. Type in your region of interest or select it from the list and click Confirm.
Note: You can also access this page by going directly to https://www.google.com/preferences?lang=1.
By doing that, you’ll see results relevant to the newly selected region. Yet, your online search will still be personalized.
How to avoid personalization in your Google search results? Short answer — you can use Incognito Mode. But this alone might not be enough. That’s why we discuss all the intricacies of this below right after showing your two other methods for changing your country in Google.
2. Try Google’s advanced search
Another super simple option to update location on Google is to use the Advanced search feature. This is how it works:
1. Google anything. Then, click Tools > Advanced search.
2. Scroll down to Region and select any location of interest from the dropdown. Then, click the Advanced Search button.
Again, you might still get the results that are influenced by other settings on your device and/or browser. To avoid this, you can follow our instructions in the Incognito Mode.
Yet, if you want to ensure that you completely avoid personalization in your search results, please consult the section below.
3. Manually change your Google search country settings
This is the most complicated method of all mentioned in this guide. But it is also the one that allows you to use precise location, not just any country, but also any city, area, down to the exact building. This is especially useful if you’re working on your local SEO.
And while this approach to the SERP location change might seem a bit too complex, it won’t be if you follow our guidance step-by-step:
1. Start by finding the coordinates of the location for which you want to see your search results. To do this, go to Google Maps and right-click on any particular place, whether it’s a country, city, district, or street. We’ve traveled to Paris for this task :)
2. You can click on the coordinates to copy them. Save them in some doc or notes — we’ll use them later.
3. Now, google the query you’re interested in. Let’s imagine that we want to see what flower stores appear on the first page of SERPs when someone searches from that location in Paris. For this, we can google “flower stores.”
4. Right-click on any empty spot and click Inspect. Alternatively, use command + option + I on a Mac or Ctrl + Shift + C on Windows to open Dev Tools.
5. Next, click on three vertical dots in the upper menu > More tools > Sensors. Note: If you’ve used this feature before, you might already have Sensors in the lower-right corner opened as a tab.
6. Select Other… in the Location dropdown.
7. And now, insert your coordinates. In our case, these are 48.86900375791109, 2.355672843571987.
8. Close the Inspect window to get back to your search page, scroll down, and click Update location. Note: This will work only for the current page. Yet, you can repeat this process as many times as you wish with different locations.
Here comes something we’ve mentioned after describing every method, but it is really important to remember. Typically, search engines and your device collect lots of information about you to make your user experience better.
That’s why changing location might not be that easy because your accounts and devices store a lot of data. Still, you can change that as well — this is what our next section is all about.
How to avoid personalization in your Google search results
Many people who wonder “how to search on Google from a different location” don’t think about search personalization. And this is a bit of a mistake, simply because there are many factors that can influence your search results.
There are many reasons why you might want to get generic results, from checking what your potential leads see to tracking your progress for the SEO audit report. Either way, for anyone doing search engine optimization and/or marketing, it is a useful skill to have.
So, if you want to get completely neutral results, the best you can do is combine these three steps:
- Using Incognito Mode;
- Enabling VPN;
- Disabling location tracking.
While the first two are pretty straightforward, let’s see how you can disable location tracking because there is more than one step to it.
How can you disable location tracking for neutral search results?
If you want to make sure that Google doesn’t track your location in any way, ideally, you have to go through these three steps:
1. Turn off tracking in your Google account
For this, you’ll have to do the following:
1. Go to Google Activity Controls. You can access it through this link: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols.
2. Make sure you have Web & App Activity disabled.
3. Scroll down to the Timeline and make sure the toggle is switched off. Note: The Timeline feature was previously called Location History.
2. Turn off tracking on your browser
Next comes your browser. Depending on the browser you’re using, this process will look slightly different. Let’s see how it works for Chrome:
- Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of your browser.
- From there, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Site settings > Location. And select Don't allow sites to see your location.
3. Turn off tracking on your device(s)
The last step is to make sure your device doesn’t track your location. Again, the process will depend on your OS.
But no matter what device you’re using, typically, you should go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location (the names might vary slightly). Once you’re there, disable any tracking.
Note: To make sure that everything works as needed, you can restart your computer and browser.
Some of you might be reading this and asking: “Why would I go through all this trouble with tracking disabling if I can simply turn off search personalization in one click?”
This is an extremely legit question. Let’s see why it isn’t that simple.
Why turning off search personalization isn’t enough?
Google offers you an option to disable search personalization, and many think that it is enough to see ‘unbiased’ search results. Some even assume that it is an equivalent of the Incognito Mode. Yet, it isn’t quite like that.
Once you disable this toggle, Google will stop using the search history you had before. But there is a huge BUT. Google may still be influenced by your country, device(s), language, and other preferences.
Besides, even with Search personalization turned off, your cookies won’t be disabled, and, on top of it, Google will still use your session details, which include location, language, etc.
At the same time, Incognito Mode basically imitates the search request from an absolutely new user. And obviously, Google has little data on them. Yet, if you don’t disable location tracking or use a VPN, you can still get search results that are localized to some degree.
We’ve decided to test this. And the interesting thing is that turning off Personalized search showed exactly the same results as when it was enabled. We didn’t play around with location permissions, didn’t delete cache, and didn’t use VPN, though.
Yet, when we used the Incognito Mode, we got different results.
That’s exactly why turning off Personalized search isn’t the same as using Incognito Mode.
So, if you simply want to disable your past search history, use it. Yet, if you want to get more generic results that aren’t influenced by other factors (e.g., location, language, cookies, etc.), Incognito Mode is a better choice.
Note: To access the Personalized Search feature, go to https://myactivity.google.com/search-personalization or search for something on Google (i.e., type any query), click on your Google account picture in the top-right corner, and select Search personalization.
Conclusion
Now, you know how to change the geography of search results without any Google SERP location changers. While you can still use a VPN for an extra layer of “protection” from the personalized search results, you don’t necessarily need it.
If you aren’t sure what option to choose, we’d recommend starting with the first and the easiest one and then trying other ways if something doesn’t work as you wanted.
But whatever you do, make sure to keep in mind all the location tracking in your browser, Google account, and on the device itself. If you want to get more generalized search results, simply use our recommendations.
Sign Up
Sign Up