The Verge: “You’ve long been able to get localized search results by visiting Google at different domains — like google.com for the US, google.co.uk for England, or google.co.jp for Japan — but that won’t be the case any more after today. Google said that it’ll now deliver search results relevant to your current location no matter which domain you visit. So if you’re in New York and visit google.ru, you’ll still get results relevant to New York City. Fortunately, it’ll still be possible to escape your country’s results. You’ll be able to change locations, you’ll just have to do it through the settings menu at the bottom of google.com (which I’m willing to bet you’ve never noticed before because it’s hidden in the corner on the desktop and requires you to scroll down on mobile; I didn’t know it existed before today). By going to settings and then “search settings,” you’ll be able to pick a new location…”

Google Blog – Making search results more local and relevant – “…In order to provide this optimal experience, your location determines the country service you receive results for across Google Search and Maps. Historically, these services have been labeled and accessed via country code top level domain names (ccTLD) such as [google.ng for Nigeria] or [google.com.br for Brazil]. You may also have typed in the relevant ccTLD in your browser…”