No Location option in Incognito Search Settings

[RobertFisher]

I was checking on a client ranking and went to Incognito in Chrome for the search. I went to search settings to set the location and thought I had done something wrong. I closed and went back to search settings and still no location setting. See attached.

Interestingly, when I went to my signed in Chrome and set the location and then went to incognito and went to search settings, then location showed up for me. This also begs a question about why Google has this where you must be signed in to set a location in Incognito mode.

Thanks for any input you have,

Robert

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[Devensys]

Hi,

this is an interesting question. I tried it myself and it was working for me (I can change the location). However, I noticed that i was using the french version of Google (google.fr). See the attached snip.

When switching to Google.com in english, the "search tools" button disappears... This is weird.

If this is helping in any way

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[RobertFisher]

Thanks, I think it just adds more info. Seems to be a bug at the Google. OR if you are more into the conspiracy realm, it is some surreptitious way of tracking where we think we may want to be if we lose our memory on a day we are logged in....

Best

[Eric_Rohrback]

Google's most likely removing this feature. See this great thread in the local search forum to learn more. To summarize our assumptions, it's because the only people that really used this feature were SEO's to check ranking. Normal searchers either modified the query or did nothing, since most people probably never knew that feature existed.

[RobertFisher]

I'm not sure from Linda's post that you can draw the conclusion Google is most likely removing it. Here is the quote from Linda:

"Google is testing or tweaking or moving or deleting the option to set search location. 
Obviously this feature/ability is critical to those of us in the industry. "

Our Local guy is on Linda's forum regularly and said no one is sure if it is a change, a bug, or a tweak. Yes, it is easy to believe they are removing it based on past behavior, but not sure that is necessarily true. Thanks for the input  and the link to Linda's post though.

[Eric_Rohrback]

It looks a lot like what Google's done in the past with other features, which is a strong indication they're going to remove that feature. I think it's fair to say that casual searchers wouldn't know that feature exists because it's hidden behind a couple other buttons, and why would they care? (Many of us mention that within that forum thread) The more likely scenario is that a typical searcher will use a geo-modified search query to indicate a change in location; not adjust a search setting. Like I mentioned in my last post, we're making a strong assumption based on past behavior - not definitely saying it's being removed, since that hasn't been officially announced.

I find it interesting this has been going on for almost a month and has primarily affected US-based searchers. This came around the same time as Google's slow killing of GMB pages by refocusing them from G+ into Maps (still in the process of changing). Not sure if there's a connection, but it was interesting to observe this happening at the same time.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Robert, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, your Local guy is right ... no one is sure what the deal is with this. It's appearing with some settings and not with others, so it seems kind of like a test, but it could equally well be some kind of glitch. Kind of a pain, huh! Linda's post is the best I know of, too, covering this issue. I really hope location search remains accessible in some form, as obviously, we use it just about every day!

[Eric_Rohrback]

Barry is reporting official word from Google this feature is dead due to low usage - Check it out here.

I think our speculation in the Local Search Forum thread actually turned out to be right.

[RobertFisher]

Yes, you were right. Good job.

[dotlineseo]

Hi Robert,

Where we can find location search in google.

Thanks,

Akhilesh

[RobertFisher]

If you read above you will see that it has been removed.

This is what many are using instead: http://isearchfrom.com/