Blogger redirects to country specific Domain/URL

Bloggers would be surprised to see that their blogspot URL changes automatically to their country specific URLs. This is because Blogger and Google have decided to redirect all blogspot pages to their respective country specific domains. For example by blog http://bloggerbasicsforbeginner.blogspot.com automatically redirects to http://bloggerbasicsforbeginner.blogspot.in/ when I open my blogspot in India. Similarly if my blogger is opened in australia the URL would automatically be directed to http://bloggerbasicsforbeginner.blogspot.au/.

There will be lots of issues related to this change which needs to be figured out as early as possible. The prominent issue will be the impact on page ranks. For example let us say that your website has an alexa ranking of 1,000 and Google Pagerank as 3. Now after this redirection of URLS to country specific domains your blog will not be recognized by Alexa and the Google Pagerank will be N/A.

Why this Change?

This is what the Blogger support said as the reason for the change: "Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD."

Where we can see the change?

We can see the change only at the blog URL address.

Will this change affect my blog?

There will not be any changes to your blog expect for the URL redirecting to the country specific domain.

Will there be any change to search engine optimization SEO on my blog?

Due to this change the blogspot content will be see on different domains. Duplicate contents on different domains will have an effect on search results. But Google is taking every effort to minimize the issues and to find a solution for this as early as possible.

How to redirect my blog to .com?

Bloggers can use this tip below to redirect their blog to .com. You need to type the /ncr at the end of your blog address. For example the address should be like http://[blogname].blogspot.com/ncr. This will always redirect to the U.S English blog.

This defeats the purpose of the URL redirecting by Google.


Possible questions to be answered by Google

How Google is going to determine traffic data?

How Google is going to come up with the Pagerank issue?

It is still early stage and we have more questions than answers right now. Hope to see Google come up with a solution for these issues.

Till then don't worry and keep blogging.

For more details visit Google Support