Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best and easiest Google Depersonalization method
-
Hello,
Moz hasn't written anything about depersonalization for years. This article has methods, but I don't know if they are valid anymore.
What's an easy, effective way to depersonalize Google search these days? I would just log out of Google, but that shows different ranking results than Moz's rank tracker for one of our main keywords, so I don't know if that method is correct.
Thanks
-
Thanks Rand, really appreciate it!
-
Hi Rand,
Thanks for jumping in and helping us all out. Your response is much appreciated.
Regards,
Vijay
-
I'm surprised at how well this still works, but it does:
- Use an incognito browser window to remove account personalization
- Use a query string like this: https://google.co.nz/search?q=your+keyword+terms&gl=us
With 2) above, you're removing the geographic bias of any particular region/IP address by searching in Google New Zealand, then re-geo-locating the search to the US. This will give you non-geo-biased results.
If you want to see how specific results look from a particular region, there's two semi decent options:
A) Use Google's Ad Preview Tool: https://adwords.google.com/apt/anon/AdPreview?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000
B) Use the &near parameter, e.g. https://google.co.nz/search?q=your+keyword+terms&gl=us&near=seattle+wa -
Yes, this is one of many factors for de-personalization. Also, there can be many more hidden factors which we are yet to discover.
I have done a lot of research on this matter, I use a specific PC with VPN dedicated to checking keyword SERP ranks for my clients, as they are from many different countries and having a different target audience, we try to replicate the results for different scenarios.
I hope this helps.
-
So am I correct that logging out and adding &pws=0 is not enough?
-
Hi There,
In addition to the methods suggested for de-personalization of results, there are additional few more factors.You may also like to read a blog post I wrote on my website Impact of Personalized Search results .
Incognito window doesn't mean you have deleted history of the previous browsing, you will have to clean the browsing history and cookies.
Use VPN or proxy to get results from different locations and countries. This gives you best Idea about your SERP status in different countries.
I hope this helps, please feel free to ask more questions by responding.
Regards,
Vijay
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Key webpage fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP
Hi, We have found that one of our key webpages has been fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP for around 2 weeks. Some days it will be on page 6 in the morning and then page 2 in the afternoon. We have recently updated some copy on the page and wondered if this could be the cause. Has anyone else experienced this? If so how long was it before the page settled? https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/property-management-software/ Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | nfrank0 -
How can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil?
Hello, how can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil location. I need to know what is the position in Brazil location for the keyword "ligação internacional" in the Google search engine for the webpage www.solaristelecom.com/ligacao-internacional. I tried to use the Moz tools to discover it but only shows that I am not in the top 50, then I want to know where I am, and if I am listed or not. I tried to search it in my browser and didn't show the name of my website. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | lmoraes1 -
Best way to handle outdated & years old Blog-posts?
Hi all, We have almost 1000 pages or posts from our blog which are indexed in Google. Few of them are years old, but they have some relevant and credible content which appears in search results. I am just worried about other hundreds of non-relevant posts which are years old. Being hosting hundreds of them, our website is holding lots of these useless indexing pages which might be giving us little negative impact of keeping non-ranking pages. What's the best way to handle them? Are these pages Okay? Or must be non-indexed or deleted? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Very strange, inconsistent and unpredictable Google ranking
I have been searching through these forums and haven't come across someone that faces the same issue I am. The folks on the Google forums are certain this is an algorithm issue, but I just can't see the logic in that because this appears to be an issue fairly unique to me. I'll take you through what I've gone through. Sorry for it being long. Website URL: https://fenixbazaar.com 1. In early February, I made the switch to https with some small hiccups. Overall however the move was smooth, had redirects all in place, sitemap, indexing was all fine. 2. One night, my organic traffic dropped by almost 100%. All of my top-ranking articles completely disappeared from rank. Top keyword searches were no longer yielding my best performing articles on the front page of results, nor on the last page of results. My pages were still being indexed, but keyword searches weren't delivering my pages in results. I went from 70-100 active users to 0. 3. The next morning, everything was fine. Traffic back up. Top keywords yielding results for my site on the front page. All was back to normal. Traffic shot up. Only problem was the same issue happened that night, and again for the next three nights. Up and down. 4. I had a developer and SEO guy look into my backend to make sure everything was okay. He said there were some redirection issues but nothing that would cause such a significant drop. No errors in Search Console. No warnings. 5. Eventually, the issue stopped and my traffic improved back to where it was. Then everything went great: the site was accepted into Google News, I installed AMP pages perfectly and my traffic boomed for almost 2 weeks. 6. At this point numerous issues with my host provider, price increases, and incredibly outdated cpanel forced me to change hosts. I did without any issues, although I lost a number of articles albeit low-traffic ones in the move. These now deliver 404s and are no longer indexed in the sitemap. 7. After the move there were a number of AMP errors, which I resolved and now I sit at 0 errors. Perfect...or so it seems. 8. Last week I applied for hsts preload and am awaiting submission. My site was in working order and appeared set to get submitted. I applied after I changed hosts. 9. The past 5 days or so has seen good traffic, fantastic traffic to my AMP pages, great Google News tracking, linking from high-authority sites. Good performance all round. 10. I wake up this morning to find 0 active people on my site. I do a Google search and notice my site isn't even the first result whenever I do an actual search for my name. The site doesn't even rank for its own name! My site is still indexed but search results do not yield results for my actual sites. Check Search Console and realised the sitemap had been "processed" yesterday with most pages indexed, which is weird because it was submitted and processed about a week earlier. I resubmitted the sitemap and it appears to have been processed and approved immediately. No changes to search results. 11. All top-ranking content that previously placed in carousal or "Top Stories" in Google News have gone. Top-ranking keywords no longer bring back results with my site: I went through the top 10 ranking keywords for my site, my pages don't appear anywhere in the results, going as far back as page 20 (last page). The pages are still indexed when I check, but simply don't appear in search results. It's happening all over again! Is this an issue any of you have heard of before? Where a site is still being indexed, but has been completely removed from search results, only to return within a few hours? Up and down? I suspect it may be a technical issue, first with the move to https, and now with changing hosts. The fact the sitemap says processed yesterday, suggests maybe it updated and removed the 404s (there were maybe 10), and now Google is attempting to reindexed? Could this be viable? The reason I am skeptical of it being an algorithm issue is because within a matter of hours my articles are ranking again for certain keywords. And this issue has only happened after a change to the site has been applied. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | fenixbazaar0 -
Celebrity Profile On The Side of Google For High Profile Person
Hello! When I google "Justin Timberlake" I see web search results and a sidebar. See image below: http://screencast.com/t/qwYeiFZQRzT How does one get their results to display like this? Is this something that Google creates automatically or is it something the celebrity initiates/creates on their behalf. Does the celebrity have any options to choose from as to what displays on this sidebar? What is this called? I look forward to your response. qwYeiFZQRzT
Algorithm Updates | | InternetRep0 -
Does a KML file have to be indexed by Google?
I'm currently using the Yoast Local SEO plugin for WordPress to generate my KML file which is linked to from the GeoSitemap. Check it out http://www.holycitycatering.com/sitemap_index.xml. A competitor of mine just told me that this isn't correct and that the link to the KML should be a downloadable file that's indexed in Google. This is the opposite of what Yoast is saying... "He's wrong. 🙂 And the KML isn't a file, it's being rendered. You wouldn't want it to be indexed anyway, you just want Google to find the information in there. What is the best way to create a KML? Should it be indexed?
Algorithm Updates | | projectassistant1 -
Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
Hi girls + guys, a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k) It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de. We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors). After my first analyse I can say this: google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine) we are on 1st place with our domain name the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%) last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes. We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up. We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average. No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page) it's an old domain (2002) Lot of (good) inbound links Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty. So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?) My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess? What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A) Any idea would be appreciated! Best wishes,
Algorithm Updates | | GeorgFranz
Georg.1
