If I enter www.google.com it is always in my language. How does google get the correct language? Do they check the IP or is the language of the browser?
+4
A:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolocation_software
Google uses IP Geolocation to get information from what country you are browsing and tries to set you that language. Probably if it find other settings in the request header which also sends your browser language it will switch to it.
Tomasz Kowalczyk
2010-09-10 08:27:21
if you are satisfied with the answer, please accept it :)
Tomasz Kowalczyk
2010-09-10 08:30:02
@Tomasz: Give him a minute....
Thilo
2010-09-10 08:32:37
ok, there is no rush ;]
Tomasz Kowalczyk
2010-09-10 08:34:34
This (probably) isn't actually all that's going on - in multi-lingual countries it will be using the Accept-Language header too. It's funny this post comes up as the google result for questions on the matter (already) since you'd figure they'd disclose just what they're doing somewhere in their docs.
Rudu
2010-09-10 22:31:30
+1
A:
Google knows all. They can probably pick out the clothes you like if you gave them the chance ;)
Its most likely a combination fo two things; geolocation via IP address, plus info gleaned from your google acocunt if you happen to be logged in.
Visage
2010-09-10 08:32:28
Related: Proof Goole is God (http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/Scripture/Proof_Google_Is_God.html) :D
Matteo Italia
2010-09-10 09:04:05
+2
A:
Your browser sends out Accept-Language header. Google is in english for me at work, where I have english OS+non-internationalized broser , but at home I got czech OS+browser and Google redirects me to google.cz.
Yossarian
2010-09-10 09:01:58
Not true, I have an English OS and setted the preferred lang as English in the browser, and Google still sends me to www.google.com.ar (Argentina-Spanish) the first time (of course it remember my choice when I changed it)
Eduardo Molteni
2010-09-10 13:02:50
@Eduardo - you're confusing localized search results with languages, not necessarily the same. Google will always try and use the local version of it's search engine for the country you're in. If you travel with a laptop, you'll find it redirects to the local version of google while you're there.
Rudu
2010-09-10 22:35:03