Using Google to find programming answers (does locale matter)?

Question

I have overseas developers working for me, and sometimes I am surprised they can't find the same resources online that I do. They are in a South America country... and Google defaults to their language/locale.

What do you think about this, when using it to solve computer programs? There is very little software development done in their country (as compared to the US). Is Google skewing their results for articles in their language or posted on sites that are local to them?

Should I insist that they bypass their local Google search and have them use the US version?

Answer 1

I live in Portugal and so whenever I go to google.com it defaults to google.pt. But that never stopped me from finding most of the answers I've searched for. In my experience, when I search for stuff in english, english results appear. If I write the search query in portuguese, results from portuguese sites appear. That's all. So they should be able to find the answers that you do. Another factor that may influence they searching ability is their command of written english. Or maybe their Google-Fu is just weak =)

Answer 2

Yes, Google does prioritise results from their country. From their country being either in their cctld or which are hosted there. Details on this are a bit sketchy, I've only found two useful references and they don't make it clear whether using the .com site from a foreign address is any different to using the country specific site.