Google Serving Results Based on Location Instead of ccTLDs

Google is making a dramatic change to the way they serve country specific search results. Going forward Google will provide search results from the country you're physically in instead of based on websites' country code top level domains (ccTLDs) like Google.ca for Canada Google.au for Australia. Google has stated that their reason for this change is that around one in five searches on Google is related to location and they've realized that people want and expect search results for the country they're actually in. This is how Google explained it:

Today, we’ve updated the way we label country services on the mobile web, the Google app for iOS, and desktop Search and Maps. Now the choice of country service will no longer be indicated by domain. Instead, by default, you’ll be served the country service that corresponds to your location. So if you live in Australia, you’ll automatically receive the country service for Australia, but when you travel to New Zealand, your results will switch automatically to the country service for New Zealand. Upon return to Australia, you will seamlessly revert back to the Australian country service.

The glaring issue with this change is this part...

Typing the relevant ccTLD in your browser will NO longer bring you to the various country services—this preference should be managed directly in settings.

Yeah, because if someone is typing in the country they'd like to see results from then it's smart to NOT let them do it... the logic on this escapes us. Anyway, to change the results to the country you'd like to see then you have to go to your Search Settings, which you can find in the bottom right hand corner of Google's homepage under Settings.