Different SERP result from different locations.

At my office location I can run a google search (or run a program that will check my search engine results position) and i will get a certain position.. Say 35th down.

If I run the same search term at home, i get a much different result.. First page.. 3rd result..

Whats the reasoning for this? Both computers are NOT logged into any type of google account.

Is there a way to find my TRUE position for a keyword?

Thanks for any insight.

 

are they in the same state and country?

 

Google is logging your activity .. simple
Google has been doing that for ages, their user behavior database is tremendous. It does not matter if you log in Google account or not. Google can send in a cookie and keep getting your usage activity. What rank you get in your office is probably the real rank i.e SERP here.

 

You will get different search results for different Google domains.

 

yes same state and country -- 15 miles apart.

 

Well I just checked on my phone (droid) and got a completely different 3rd number.... Also.. I've completely cleared off the cookies from all mentioned devices and still get the same results at all locations.

 

What do you mean different google domains?

 

Probably means diffferent geo Google SE. Like google.com and google.co.uk

 

weird. I've never heard of such a thing before.

 

May be the softwares are fetching the data from different data centers.
For example, In one place, the data is being requested from your local google domain and at the other place, the data is being requested on google.com

 

Here's an direct example:

Last week (wednesday i believe).. I searched for one of my keywords at home just to check how i was doing (actually in google.com... not from a software) and i was #3.. Then I came to work and did the exact same thing, and I was on the 3rd page of results..

I can't find any reason at all that this would happen..

 

Personalised results, cookies, different data centres, different isp triggering different geo-targeted results. No 2 computers will give the same results. You will even see differences if you switch browsers on one computer.

 

Thanks for the info.. I imagine i'll still be scratching my head for a few days on this.

 

As the previous poster said it could be personalize result or you might be seeing a result from one of the Google caffeine datacenter

 

Are you sure that you are using Google.com only when you try to search? I recommend that you use Google Chrome in checking your SERP rankings. It is more accurate than FireFox.

 

Yes! You are correct. Google.in for India Google.lk for Sri Lanka.

 

If you are in the same state and country, then obviously you will get the same result, and that might be your real position in google.

However if you want to check by different way, then just get some free vpn services installed on any of your (office/home) computer and check with different ips. The rank for your site will definately vary with the vpn software.

 

1. Please check to make sure your office PC has not been caught by some "personal setting"

2. If you want to know result exactly and your target is Google.com then you should do search on AOL.com. The AOL.com using Google as result and focusing on US. If your site ranked third in AOL.com then you can assure your website still be safe.

3. You should check across Google DCs to see if some DC might have different result for your site. It could mean your site ranking might be change in a soon. Check by use this tool - Bad Neighborhood - Google Multi Datacenter Rank Checker

4. You might want to check this out to see if your site might being panelized - SEOPenalty.com. This tool has accuracy for me personally.