# Google thinks I'm in a different country
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 5, 2024, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267 "2024-08-05T14:05:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/1 "2024-08-05T14:05:32Z")
Specifically, it thinks I’m in Washington DC, when I’m in fact in England. This is a new thing, last week it was fine. Anybody have a fix? I assume it’s something to do with my IP address as it’s across my laptop and phone but I’ve searched around and can’t seem to find a simple fix. One that works anyway. I filled in a form to notify Google, but god knows where that goes.
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/2 "2024-08-05T14:27:01Z")
The IP address is assigned to a device when it goes online; it’s (usually) not static but rather assigned whenever a connection is established, and you will then get an IP address from the country you’re connecting from, unless you go out of your way to hide this, e.g. via a VPN. Do you use a VPN (e.g. one provided by an employer) to go online? If not, and this occurs across phone and laptop, then I suppose that this is due to some setting in a browser that syncs across devices, rather than an IP address issue.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/3 "2024-08-05T15:06:47Z")
No I don’t use a VPN, and don’t believe I’ve done anything different from normal - it was fine before I noticed I was being served shopping ads in the wrong currency at the weekend. My wife gets everything in Danish Krona because she works for a Danish company so her laptop is obviously served differently, but all our other devices have always been fine until now - now they’re all showing US search results.
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### Author:  [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/4 "2024-08-05T15:10:10Z")
If you’re with Plusnet it’s a known issue that sometimes it provides IPs that seen to be in the US. Turning off your router for 3 minutes then turning it on should fix it.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/5 "2024-08-05T15:12:10Z")
No I’m with BT. I’ve just checked Safari and it’s happening there too so doesn’t seem to be a browser issue. I’ll try a reboot anyway.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/6 "2024-08-05T15:16:27Z")
I’ve done a search on my IP address and it’s showing as my home area, so now I’m totally flummoxed.
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### Author:  [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/7 "2024-08-05T15:34:08Z")
Are you signed into Google?
I am not, and when I go to the Google search page, there is a “Settings” link in the lower right corner. Click on that and select “Search Settings” from the pop-up menu. Then, in the left column, click on “Other Settings” and then on “Language & Region”. On that screen, my “Results region” is set to “Current Region”, which I assume means it’s going to determine it by my IP. Yours might be different for some reason.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/8 "2024-08-05T15:35:56Z")
Thank you, I’ve checked that before - it states ‘current region’, I’ve also tried saving that to ‘United Kingdom’ but it just reverts back to current region.
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### Author:  [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/9 "2024-08-05T15:45:04Z")
Did you try going into airplane mode AND turning off wifi/ then go outside and try to access Google maps, which should force the system to update location by GPS.
Worth a shot.
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/10 "2024-08-06T00:54:15Z")
A few years ago Google notified me they changed my region from Australia to Sweden; that turned out to be because I had a VPN connected there for much of the time. I objected (I forget where exactly I found a place to do that) but they came back saying no, you are in Sweden. So I kept getting ads in Swedish, thus dudding their own customers.
I’ve since disconnect the VPN except when I actually need it on, and my region has now changed back to Australia - without any notice from Google. Huh.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/11 "2024-08-06T00:58:45Z")
Whatever Google thinks, I do not think it should matter or do any harm, unless you _want_ to see local ads/spam or regularly use some third-party georestricted services that use Google’s geolocation. You should just be able to ignore it.
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### Author:  [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/12 "2024-08-06T01:06:45Z")
I don’t have a VPN and I have had issues this year with google in this regard.
On a recent trip to Virginia from Pennsylvania it changed my location to Europe lol. I haven’t been in Europe since last September.
Thankfully it let me change back to my normal location.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/13 "2024-08-06T12:21:00Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> Whatever Google thinks, I do not think it should matter or do any harm, unless you _want_ to see local ads/spam or regularly use some third-party georestricted services that use Google’s geolocation. You should just be able to ignore it.
Not really because it affects my search results. So I’m shopping for lighting, and all the shopping links are directing me to US sites.
I’m in work now and my laptop has reverted to UK search results. So it must be my home IP address, even though it says the correct place.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/14 "2024-08-06T12:41:57Z")
Most of the time, Google Drive thinks I’m in Germany, a country I’ve visited for one day, without Internet or phone. Only Drive, though. The rest of Google has me in the correct country.
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### Author:  [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-thinks-im-in-a-different-country/1005267/15 "2024-08-09T15:54:52Z")
YouTube sometimes serves me with Spanish-language ads, although I don’t often watch Spanish language content.
On other devices, such as my tablet and phone (who probably share cookies through the Google sign-in being common across these devices), lately I’ve been seeing Chinese-language ads for an SUV. I’ve not been to any Chinese-language sites or watched many videos from Chinese YouTubers.
Weird blips in the otherwise monotonous parade of ads in English for common stuff. Well, the stuff they do advertise is often biased toward where I actually live, and apparently my neighbors like to see ads for gun holsters and emergency storable food pouches.