Over the past month or so, I have had a lot of people ask me “how can I get Google’s US site?”
Well, you see, Google checks your IP address to find out where in the world you are, and they give you the Google site that is appropriate for your location. Since I am living in the Philippines, when I first go to Google, it takes me to Google Pilipinas, the Philippine Google site. And, on top of that, the results of my search are in Tagalog! Since I don’t speak Tagalog, this can be a bit of a problem! 
Also, the search results are skewed to the country that the site is located in. So, if I search for something, it gives me Philippine results first. Well, that’s not really what I want. I prefer the US results, or even better, I want the best results no matter where in the world they are located.
Click on the link in the red circle to get Google's main site
Thankfully, though, there is an easy fix for this, and it is something you only have to do one time and forget about it (unless you get a new computer, or somehow start out with a fresh browser or something).
In the image above, you see Google Philippines home page. I have circled in red where it says “Google.com in English.” If you click on that link you will go to Google’s main home page (US based), and from that point on, every time you go to Google, the US page will come up for you, unless you change it.
So, it’s very simple as you can see.
Happy Googling!
Thanks, Bob, indeed I was one of those "How do I make Google 'land' where I want it to" questioners. Like many things on the Internet, it's so simple once you know the trick.
This is particularly important to those of you (including Filipino readers) who are trying to make money wiht your on-line efforts. Unless you are sure that your only audience/potential customers are alwyas going to be in the Philippines, you want to use the main (US) Google search most of the time, for the simple reason that your competition does. And even if you are looking for other Filipinos globally (OFW's and Balikbayan, for example), they normally won't be doing their searches on Google's .ph server. They'll be landing on the server for their current country, or the main .com (US) site, from which all results flow anyway.
I applaud Google for their efforts to "localize" their search result by country, and to use as many languages as possible … but using the IP address of the user does not always make for a perfect match.
Hi Dave – I fully agree with you regarding using the US site, as it is the main Google site that most of the world will see. It simply gives a more accurate look at the web. The web is the World Wide Web, not the Philippine Wide Web, so I just feel it is wise to look at results that are balanced for the entire world, not skewed to any one nation.
Mine is already in english but still shows up in the url box as google.com.ph, so it must still be returning local serp and not US serp. However, in the same place where you showed the 'Google.com in English' is a 'Go to Google.com' link and when I did, the url returns US serp this time.
Before finding this technique out here, I used to make sure that I get US serps by adding '&gl=us' at the end of the search results url. But it's kinda tiresome in that I have to add that phrase each day I open google.
Hi James – Happy to help you find Google!
Bob, I have the fix to your problem, I can offer you a mirror site and a proxy server through my computer company. I have a US ip address in New Jersey and i can host or redirect to your Philippine server. I also can export electronics and computers equipment. If your intrested just e-mail me before i move to Davao lol. I will be there hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years.
Hi Steven – Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. I don't really have a need, though.