Amazing... I am getting different results when doing a search with Google just by using a different browser!! Between IE and Opera the results are really different. And another strange thing is that with IE it shows 14 million results, while Opera shows 12,700,000 WTF??
Yeah Fryman I've been seeing drastic differences in serps as well. Right now my site is all over the place and has been like this for the past few weeks. Not sure WTF is going on.
I am just totally baffled. I always thought that hitting a different datacenter would be caused by your location. If my neighbor told me that he was getting different results than mine I would of understood because of the geotargeting, even a simple IP change cause the different SERPs, but how the heck can it be happening just by using a different browser?
fryman. you can hit a different datacenter just by querying over and over ... I believe that Google just shuffles through them... even though they geotarget i believe that within those datacenters appointed for that geoarea that they shuffle between them...
C:\>nslookup www.google.com Server: cns.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net Address: 68.87.69.146 Non-authoritative answer: Name: www.l.google.com Addresses: 66.102.7.147, 66.102.7.99, 66.102.7.104 Aliases: www.google.com Code (markup): This little snippet shows that when I go to "www.google.com", I could be hitting any one of three data centers.
Yeah, but I have been doing this search many times for a few hours to see if they change, and no, I keep getting the same different results with IE and Opera. It is almost as if Google was saying "ok, this request comes from IE, lets show them this list, and this one comes from Opera, lets show them this other list". I don't see why they would do this. Yeah, but why would you be hitting one datacenter with one browser and another one with another browser?
Did not know about this Browser difference in google searches... is it kind of discrimination between browsers...
alex: There is no "browser difference in google searches." fryman damnit, you have now created another unkillable urban legend.
It is no secret that Google uses different datacenters to deliver their SERPS no matter where you are. It is all a part of their load balancing and everflux updating schemae. If you want to view the results on different data centers at any one time there are several tools to help you do so: http://www.seocritique.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40 _
I think Fryman might be right... I used my favorite google datacenter tool and kept checking the phrase "Student Loans" In my browser, my site was bouncing as high as #3, but I checked all the datacenters in that tool and I was between 7 and 9. Seems like they might be trying to introduce some elements of personalized search?
That is quite true. I've refreshed three times and seen my site in 10th, 9th and 8th position in seconds of each other!
Well I see that also , and I think it's because Opera it's keeping a DNS cache, or something like that. While IE it's updating everytime it's DNS. that's all ...