There’s no doubt that the efficiency and accuracy of Google’s search results have made our lives a whole lot easier. Each day, millions upon millions of us do billions of Google searches, and its because of the quality of their product that we go back to them each time we need answers.
However, there is something we all need to know as far as Google search results – namely that we may not see the same search results when we do a Google search as anyone else may get when they do the exact same search. Try running a test – if you’re at a computer that you use frequently, do a search for something generic that you have searched for before – and then try doing that same search on a computer you don’t normally use. You may see a completely different set of search results.
A client of mine recently noted this phenomenon when he searched for “mountain gear” in Google, and when I compared my search results with him. He asked me why his results differed so much from mine, and I told him it was either because he was searching when he was logged in to his Google account and had personalized his search results, or because of a little-known fact about Google regarding custom search data. In short, if you frequently use the same computer and have made similar searches over the course of your Google search history, Google keeps a log of this and will adjust your search results accordingly. Because he constantly searched the term “mountain gear” and had clicked on his website in those results, Google had shown his website higher than it would appear if you, I, or anyone else searched the term “mountain gear”. If you want an impartial view of where websites appear in search results for any given search term, do the following:
1. Go to www.google.com and do a search on any topic or subject you choose
2. Once you see the search results, click on ‘Web History’ in the top right hand corner of the page
3. Click on ‘Disable customization based on search history’
As I guided the client through these steps, I asked him to re-search that term. Sure enough, his rankings were back where they belonged, and all confusion was eliminated. Follow these quick steps and you’ll see consistency across all your searches, on every computer you use.