How to See Google Results From Another Location

A furniture showroom in Sharjah wants to know whether it shows up when people in Dubai search for sofas. A Chicago roofer wants to see what homeowners in Evanston see when they search for roof repair. Neither can find out by searching from their own desk, because Google shapes the results around where it thinks you are.

Seeing results the way a searcher somewhere else does is a basic local SEO skill, and one we use every day in our local SEO work. Below are the methods that work, from the simplest to the most precise, and what each one can and can’t show you.

Why does Google show different results in different places?

Google estimates where you are from your device’s precise location (if you’ve allowed it), the home and work addresses saved in your account, your past searches, and your IP address, then tailors results to that place. The effect is strongest in the local pack, where the searcher’s distance from each business is one of the three ranking factors.

Google sets this out in its help page on location and search. It also notes that IP addresses are only “roughly based on geography”, which matters later when we get to VPNs.

The local pack reacts most because Google ranks it on relevance, distance and prominence. Move the searcher a couple of kilometres and a different set of businesses becomes “nearby”. Organic results move too, but mostly by country and language: different domains, different local publishers, different languages. Our guide on climbing the Google Maps rankings explains the three factors in detail.

Method 1: Change the region in Google’s search settings

For a different country, use Google’s own setting. On a computer, open Search settings, find the region section, pick the country and save. In the Google app on Android, go to Settings, then Language & region, then Search region. This changes country-level results but can’t place you in a particular city.

Google documents it on its page about seeing results for a different country, which states that “your results are customized to your current region”. On desktop, the settings live at google.com/preferences.

It’s useful for checking how organic results differ between, say, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It won’t show you what the map pack looks like in a particular neighborhood.

Method 2: Put the place name in your search

Typing the area into the query (“plumber in Evanston”, “coffee shops in Chelsea”) is the quickest check there is, and Google’s own help suggests it. It costs nothing and needs no setup.

The catch is that it’s a different search from the one most customers run. Someone standing in Evanston typing “plumber” or “plumber near me” gets results built around their position. A query naming Evanston is matched to the place in the text instead, and the results often differ. Use it for a rough look, not as proof of what locals see.

Method 3: URL parameters

Google’s results page reads parameters from the URL. gl= sets the country with a two-letter code, and hl= sets the interface language, so google.com/search?q=dentist&gl=ae&hl=en asks for UAE results in English. A third parameter, uule, encodes a specific place. These are fine for quick checks, but Google doesn’t document them for regular search and they can change without notice.

Google does document gl for its Programmable Search API, where it “boosts search results whose country of origin matches the parameter value”. That’s a different product, though the parameter behaves similarly on the normal results page in our use. uule has never been officially documented; SEO tools generate the encoded values. Signed-in personalization still applies, so use a private window when you test this way.

Method 4: A VPN, and why it’s the weakest option for local

A VPN changes your IP address, which is only one of the signals Google uses. Your browser’s precise location, your account’s saved addresses and your search history can still place you at home. VPN servers also tend to sit in data centers in big cities, so you get a country, sometimes a city, and never a street.

The other downsides:

• Conflicting signals. If your browser shares precise location with Google, it can outweigh the VPN’s IP entirely.
• Captchas. Shared VPN addresses often trigger Google’s “unusual traffic” check, which slows every search.
• Everything is rerouted. A VPN changes all your traffic, not just the search you wanted to test.
• Limited choice. You can only appear where the provider has servers.

VPNs have real uses for privacy and access. Checking a local pack in a specific suburb isn’t one of them.

Method 5: The Search Location Changer extension

Search Location Changer is a free, open-source Chrome extension that Danish built at VDESIGNU. Pick any city, street or neighborhood (or click a point on the map), switch the override on, and search Google as normal. The results and the local pack reflect the place you picked, while your real IP and device location stay the same.

How to install it

The extension isn’t on the Chrome Web Store yet, so you install it the way developers load extensions:

1. Download the ZIP from the Search Location Changer repository on GitHub and unzip it.
2. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.
3. Switch on Developer mode in the top-right corner.
4. Click Load unpacked and choose the unzipped folder.
5. Pin the extension to your toolbar so it’s one click away.

How to use it

1. Open the extension and search for a city, street or neighborhood, or click the spot on the map.
2. For countries with more than one language, set the language and region as well.
3. Switch the override on.
4. Search Google. When you’re done, switch the override off to return to your real location.

The code is public, so you can check exactly what it changes: the search location Google receives for your queries, and nothing else. The extension page has a short video walkthrough. If you’d rather not install anything, our browser-based localized SERP checker shows results by city, ZIP code, device and Google domain.

Which method should you use?

Method	Precision	Shows the local pack for that spot?	Effort	Watch out for
Search settings region	Country	No	Low	Country only
Place name in the query	City or district	Only for that named-place search	Low	Not the search locals run
URL parameters	Country (gl), finer with uule	Sometimes	Medium	Undocumented, can break
VPN	Country, sometimes city	Unreliable	Medium	Conflicting signals, captchas
Search Location Changer	City, street or map point	Yes	Low once installed	Chrome only

Why one location check is never the whole picture

Even a perfect location change gives you one data point. A roofer based on Chicago’s Northwest Side might hold the pack in Jefferson Park and not appear at all in Evanston, and you’d only learn that by checking both. That’s the kind of mapping we do when we plan local SEO for Chicago businesses.

To see your whole service area at once, you need many points checked the same way: a geo-grid. Our free geo-grid rank tracker for Google Maps runs the same Maps search from up to 169 points and colors each one by your position. Our guide to local rank tracking on a grid explains how to read the heatmap it produces.

What to check once you can see another location

• Do you appear in the pack for your main keywords in each area you serve?
• Who does appear, and what primary category do they use? Our Business Profile optimization guide shows how to act on that.
• Are any of those competitors fake listings or keyword-stuffed names?
• What do the ads, the AI Overview and the organic results look like from there?
• Does your website rank in the regular results for “[service] in [area]”?
• Repeat from three to five points across your area, or run a grid, before drawing conclusions.