What's the difference between google.com and google.com.au

[maxman]

I live in Australia. When I use google.com and google.com.au, I can't see their difference. The web search results and sponsored links both are identical.

My question is regarding the sponsored links. Google may know my location via my ip address, so they return those sponsors in Australia for my convenience even I search in google.com(global). But how can I get the sponsored links results without any location specialized in google.com?

I am using one SEO software, it can return me different sponsored links in google.com and google.com.au. But I don't know how it can make it.

Thanks

[Mel]

If your question is concerning Adwords they do tend to preferentially show localized results based on the users IP address. If you want to see different localized results, the only way I know of is to use an anonymous proxy from the country you are interested in.

Google should also be showing you slightly different results in the .com and .au versions if you tick the pages from Australia button.

[maxman]

Thanks Mel. I am refering to Google Adwords ads. I tried to search by ticking "the page from Australia", but the returned sponsored links were still the same. They might have difference with google.com, but I didn't see it.

What I want is not localized search results. I want to search Google Adwords ads in google.com without any preferential location.

[KeywordMonkey]

Google target ads by country - because that's what advertisers want; they select country(s) to advertise in during campaign creation.

There is a URL parameter that will show you ads for different countries - search the forums for it, I don't have it to hand.

[dannysullivan]

Do a query, then add &gl=au to the end of what's in your browser to see ads as shown in Australia. For other countries, replace the AU with the IANA country-code, http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm. http://www.google.com/search?q=cars&gl=us shows ads as seen in the US, for example.