Skewed results in Google
-
Im just curious.. Im sure a lot of you, like me, Google your own search terms on a fairly frequent basis.
Does doing this skew the result you are actually seeing? As in, does Google tailor the results more to my liking, and therefore perhaps show my own site (which I would click through to often enough) higher on the page that it actually is?
Sometimes I swear that happens.
Steve.
-
Hi there
Yes, this is called Google Personalized Search - you can learn more about it from this great Whiteboard Friday.
If you want to get a more beneficial look at your rankings, I would suggest checking out Startpage or taking a look at your average position in Webmaster Tools - it's a more aggregated ranking metric in WMT as it combines multiple factors and averages your positions for that keyword/query. Also, Moz tracks keywords for you and updates you weekly.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Yes totally. They are tailored by geographic location and by what they think your preference is. The best bet is using a different browserr with your ip address if you are trying for local. If you are trying to gauge nationally, you might try several browsers and vpn's to get a good handle.
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
-
Google Acquisition & Audience Segmentation
Hi. I'm trying to figure out a solution to two questions one of my current clients has asked me in regards to Google Analytics tagging, and I'm unsure how to respond. Can anyone help? See below the questions, 1. In Google Acquisition > Overview, their paid media is reporting as "Other". They do not run any Google paid ads. They only run Facebook paid ads. Is there a way to update the source so that it says "Paid" versus "Other" within the default channel? The current solution was advised to create a channel group that the client has to then tick on overtime they want to see this data with the correct labeling. They would prefer to see it in the default. Is it just a matter of going into the *default channel, choosing the "Paid" option, and then specifying the source/medium that contains Facebook, CPC, or referral to be categorized under this channel? Or is it something else? *Aware that changes to the Default Channel are permanent changes and will change how new traffic is classified. 2. Audience segmentation > The client wants to be able to define it's audience by shopping intent and informational intent. Is there a clear way to do this, for example, by keywords used, e.g. buy, product name, entry (shopping intent), versus e.g. non-purchase intent, entry to the blog, length of time on site (info intent). Would be happy to have a conversation about the last question, since I'm conscious that there are probably multiple ways to define this - thanks. To the group, thank you for readying my questions and helping me with these solutions - your time is appreciated and valued. Sincerely, Amanda
Search Behavior | | AmandaValle.Digital0 -
& And + symbols - How does Google read these?
How does/can Google read the plus and ampersand symbols? For instance if I optimise a webpage for 'black & white football' and another page for 'black + white football' would there be any difference in ranking position? Does Google take notice of such symbols or will it only pick up on the keywords 'black white football'?
Search Behavior | | Adam_SEO_Learning0 -
Massive Google Drop on two sites!
Hi All, We have experienced a massive Google drop on Two of our eCommerce websites in the past week. From Feb - July we were ranked 2 for various key words In Aug we dropped to 8 In September to 96 if not lower. We pay for monthly link building and add unique product info each week (but not much new content such as articles or blogs). My SEO guys has not been that helpful and just sent me a link to the Panda update blog, which doesn't mean a great deal to me. Obviously this has had a massive effect on business, and ideally i need to diagnose the problem and find a new startegy on moving forward, so most likely looking for a for a new SEO guy/company as well. I need someone is proactive, communicates well and make constant suggestions about moving forward not just link building. One thing I would like to add is these two site have a different homepage, category and range structure, but do share some if the 2000 product database. Can anyone help? Any advice on sorting this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks M
Search Behavior | | etsgroup0 -
Irratic page rank results - why?
Hi, Hi- I've changed the title and reposted this question as I didn't get any insight. I really am going around in circles for this; so any help that can be given would be really appreciated.I know that you guys have the knowledge so really hoping you can share it! Thanks - background: I run two sites: www.ragsmetals.com and www.yourgoldfund.com: They offer similar products but to different markets: one is predominently trade, one predominently customer focused. They vie for the same keywords.e.g. Buy Gold My Issue: I have been trying to build www.yourgoldfund.com up from an SEO point of view; it is FALLING in the rankings; I am doing NOTHING with www.ragsmetals.com and it is rising in the rankings. I checked webmaster to see if there were any warnings as a result of penguin (found out how to do this on here - thanks for that!) there are none. I have optimized the pages a lot. I have put time into getting in bound traffic, and even more excitingly some experts (from reputable domains) have just linked to our site because they like our content! So to me things should be improving . NOTE: My OSE listed inbound links are incredibly diferent from google Webmaster. What can I do. I am a scientific person so I love the fact that I have 2 sites to compare...interested to hear your thoughts. Many thanks in advance
Search Behavior | | girlie0 -
Dating Blog Posts & How Fast Google Picks up on New Pages
I had until a few months ago included the original post date of a new blog post on the site. I then removed it and none of my results in Google now include the blog post date, although for some (for articles written about events) Google includes the date of the event where you would usually see the post date. Since I did this, it seems like new blog posts are taking longer to rank on Google, some results are ranking well, and others declined relative to what I would have previously expected. What's the best thing to be doing? To include a date (considering a lot of my content is not time-relevant) or to keep it as it is now? The second thing, is I often go through and update my articles with new information and re-post it in my rss feed etc - ie the date becomes new again. How does Google treat this? Any ideas or comments would be great! Thanks
Search Behavior | | ben10001 -
Google slow to index new domains and subs?
Anyone finding Google slow to index new websites at the moment? Made a new site on Thursday and posted a number off high quality, relevant, backlinks to it the same day and now on Monday it is still not indexed. Have see the same with a couple of sub domains I have created off a website with a moz score of 40. Normally can get new sites indexed within hours but this seems super slow.
Search Behavior | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Google showing malware attack, how to remove ?
Someone just reported that our website was showing malware attack page on their browsers. We checked and saw a bad php code on the above of our index.php file. We removed it and made it clean. Still all the visitors are getting malware attack page. How to fix this ? Site is already clean.
Search Behavior | | qubesys0 -
Can I use Google Analytics to find out actual times of visits during the day??
Hi, I'm a newbie at all this - I hope someone can help me. We're thinking of running time-specific offers to try and convert as many of our customer site visits as possible e.g. 15% discount if you call between, say, 2 and 5pm. It would be really helpful to me to find out what times of day people are visiting our site. I can't seem to find a way to do this on Google Analytics. Can anyone help? Thanks so much Sue
Search Behavior | | 3Amigos0