June 14, 2008

George Curioso Why am I suddenly getting Google and occasionally other websites in Spanish when I log on?

Happening on Mr. BlueHorse's computer also. Very strange. Any ideas, fellow Monkeys?

posted by BlueHorse 16 years ago
  • ¿Qué? ¡Yo no comprende, Señora caballo azul!
  • check your settings in google, i was able to change my interface to spanish... (and had a heck of a time changing it back 'cuz I don't READ spanish... what an idiot)
  • Google tries to be intelligent by using IP Geolocation to determine what Google site to send you to when you connect to www.google.com. If it thinks you are in España, it redirects you to www.google.es That would be smart, if we were working with IPv6 where there are plenty of unused addresses. In the current world, this means that when your block is recycled, it can get pretty odd. There are three different services that provide this info, generally based on data from ARIN, RIPE, etc. I found this out at the first Starbucks stores that converted to AT&T WiFi. They had a new block of IPs and they were formerly from Spain, so they redirected to Google.es. I think it's fixed there now.
  • Thanks guys. HB, I tried to switch it over to Stringlish, but it reverted back during an auto-update. Hmmmm, so MCroft, does this mean I can fix it? If so, how?
  • What other Google products do you have installed on your machine (googletalk, that google desktop thingy, etc)?
  • BH: google up IP Geolocation, find the three or so major firms that do it, and test your IP with them. If it says you're in Tegucigalpa, see how to contact them to give them a correction. If all three of them say you're in [wherever you are], then this isn't the problem. If it's only happening sometimes, then do this while it's happening, or write down the IP you have while it's happening. How to solve this depends on how and where you're connecting. If this is through your ISP, and it only happens somestimes, then the odds are they added a new IP block to their infrastructure and Google's provider doesn't know about it yet. It may get fixed in a few weeks when the data trickles down. But it might well work to raise hell with them.
  • Will do! Thanks.
  • Alternately, you might try changing your bookmarks to . I'm in the States right now, so I can't test whether this gets past the geolocation thing, but it's worth a try. It certainly works to explicitly enter in a non-US English speaking TLD like , , or .
  • Nichts, hier zu sehen.
  • Ich kann Glas essen; es schlecht mir nicht.