As a reminder tonight, someone I know was searching for my keywords, and then my site. Someone I know on the other side of Portland. The SERPS they saw, were different from what I saw when I typed the same keywords. My site varied on the page, competiors varied, etc.. We did this while on the phone at the same time to compare results. I've encountered this before a little bit, when someone from another state calls to offer web services, telling me that my site is on page 2 or 3, but I then see it on page 1. I know Google knows where we are located for displaying Google Adwords ads. But I think that similar variation is occuring for our searches, and possibly based on our browsing habits. What makes me guess at the browsing habits, is that I saw my listing on Bizvotes going higher on page one, and the person on the other side of Portland didn't see it at all, on page one, two or three, etc.. And I've been browsing Bizvotes lately. Anyhow, do you folks have other people on other computers in your site's market area do searches for you?
it varies quite dramatically- we tested this on a couple of words in the search engines at work.. We got totally different serp pages and we are all in the same office just a couple of centermeters away. I don't know how they work it out but i would love to know.
First question: Have all of you search in Google with your gmail (or other Google account) sign out? Second Question: Are you searching at the Google? (Google.Com, Google.Ca, etc.)
First question:We were all signed out of of all our google accounts. Second question: We were all using google.com to do our searching
Didn't ask, but since it was our son, I can say with 99% certainty that we were both on google.com and both signed in, this latest time.
It's Google personalised search - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html They rolled this latest version out about a year ago, you don't have to be signed in, it's based on your browser history and cookies.
This is a common for website that is unstable yet. You will see different results even using the same Google.com under the same roof, no "Personalized Search" involved of course. I have experienced this before. It is a sign of your website ranking moving / updating. It is hard to give a predict on which position they would be finally. However, I would count the last changed result as a key Example - If your website was ranked #7 and the your ranking moving between #3 - #7. Your website ranking is most likely end with #3.
To get a clean result from Google make sure that: 1. You are signed out of your Gmail\Google account. 2. Your web history is disabled. Now ask your friend to do the same and compare now.
SERP's ranking dramatically varies regarding the region , Google has a system installed which provide the geographically pointed rankings. So this will be quite obvious.
These two points are definitely the reason. But there are many other reasons. Few are listed below: - Google Maintains Country Specific Rankings. - Google Maintains Traffic History of Related Keywords. - Google Maintains Country Specific Keywords. For example: I have my site in top 10 for a keyword granite countertops on google.com and not there in top 10 for google.com when I try to view it from UK. It is also to the Google Data Center..I mean there are hundred probabilities. Thats why Google is boss of it's SERPs.
So what I gather from this, is that we would glean the best average glimpse of how our sites are doing, if we search locally with the web history disabled? If our service is local that it. Or have someone local to the site's service area search for us with history disabled.
One little trick you can do if you have Facebook is to do a google search then copy that url and pretend like your making a link in Facebook post. Facebook will proxy in the url results from google and show you who is number one coming from Facebooks servers in California. This can be useful. We are in Michigan so it;s interesting to see the difference in rankings base don location.
Here is what both of you need to do: 1) Do not Login to any Google Products (Gmail, etc....) 2) Open a New Google Chrome Incognito browser, then do your Google Search Trust me it works, I use the Incognito browser all the time, for manual research in the SERPs, just make it a point to not login to anything in your new Incognito browser. Clear all internet history for your browsers with a free program called CCleaner