Google Query Contamination.... Are you seeing this??
-
I have been searching on Google.com with FireFox this morning.
I searched for a state name.... like "georgia".
Then I search for a product... like "guitars".
For the Guitars query the first page of the SERPs include some music stores in georgia.
So, Google is contaminating your search results with information from your most recent query.
Are you seeing this too? Has Google been doing this for a long time? Or, I am going crazy?
-
Thanks! That's a new variant - and I didn't know that it works on Safari.
-
I agree, it stinks up my SERPs. I don't want my queries blended.
-
I just ran a test on this last night:
I used two ipads with safari both in the same room using the same wireless network.
1. Searched for Miami coffeehouses, Miami bookstores, Miami hotels & such, THEN I searched for "steakhouse"
2. Searched for Chicago coffeehouses, Chicago bookstores, Chicago hotels & such, THEN I searched for "steakhouse"
On the "Steakhouse" search the first matched with a local SF steakhouse, then the next TWO were for Chicago & Miami steakhouses, then the places was our local city of Oakland, & the last few results also matched for national steakhouse chains...
So yes, it looks like Google is in fact adapting the SERPS to your personal search strings....
-
Interesting, but like you, I hope they don't make something like this permanent. Increasingly we're being treated like we're stupid and can't do anything for ourselves.
Here in the UK there's no sign of it. I've tried UK specific county names as well as the Georgia then guitars combo originally mentioned, in Chrome and Firefox.
I get all sorts of strange adverts that don't fit my interests or searches at all - for the last two or three weeks I've been getting a Muslim dating website in Ad placements on my work and home PC - both have different Google accounts. I haven't searched for religious terms, dating, or anything at all I can think of that would be related.
-
This has happened to me recently as well. However for me it was for seemingly more disparate queries related to coupons. I don't remember the specific merchants but I had searched for something like 'finish line coupons' and subsequently searched for 'target coupons' and was still seeing ads for finishline coupons on the SERP for the latter query. Clearly, they have some work to do on this.
-
I wonder if some of the chaise lounge ads might have been triggered by remarketing cookies?
-
I saw "kayak" in your query and thought that you might know about this type of ducky....
-
Google has been doing this with adverts for a while, I have been in the same room with a person, on the same "page" & seen totally different ads for each of us... (I guess he never searched for high healed shoes)
Another thing I have noticed the MORE I search for a term the MORE it pops up in ads...
If I search once for red chair then no biggie, but when I spent an entire evening searching for a chaise lounge....I got ads for that damned chaise lounge for weeks....
SERPS have been different by location for years now.
I don't doubt at all that SERPS are going to be even more customized by what you "search for"
-
Egol - I am a layman when it comes to SEO. I began noticing strange results around 3 weeks ago. I was not observant enough to begin to define the issue and did not think to run your experiment. I believe my results began to change (or changed more frequently) around the time of the March 23, algo update. Hope this helps.
-
ahhh.... now I might understand where "ducky" comes from!
-
Yes, this just happened to me, too. I don't know how long they keep them, though; maybe find out by trying the same thing later in the day, and a day, a week, a month later, and finding where it ends, or how quickly it changes from your own change of location (like, say, going from Long Island to Philly in a day).
-
Thanks! I didn't know that!
-
Thanks! I am seeing this with my location turned on or turned off. However, we only see this in the FireFox browser. We tried Chrome and IE... and Safari on phone but did not see this.
What do you say when a customer calls and says no two people can get the same SERP to appear?
I think that is much more true than it was a few years ago. And, as time goes by few and few people are seeing the same SERPs.
-
In relation to google messing with search queries it goes into androids maps as well.
I have searched google maps for addresses and locations printed out the page & taken a drive...
Luckily for me the printed google map had a wrong turn, getting me a bit lost.
I then used my android phone to try to get better directions, before I could even get the 2nd number in the address the entire address was loaded in for me...
(I'm pretty sure Google is keeping search strings we are using and applying them to alternate uses)
-
Did you check to see if you have a location set in Google?
It seems to make a difference in SERPs. Also check to see if you are signed into any Google products such as Gmail or Webmaster. All of them give Google permission to save your search results and use that data.
My wife just did a local search and a client was #2. She sent me the Google search link via Skype and my SERP was totally different!
She was only logged into SKYPE while I was logged into SKYPE and Webmaster. I logged out of Webmaster and got a different SERP but still not the same one on her screen. Then I logged out of SKYPE but still could not replicate her SERP.
Maybe I should post that question in Moz: What do you say when a customer calls and says no two people can get the same SERP to appear?
I searched "georgia" then "guitar" and got no local results. Then I changed my location to Atlanta, GA and still didn't get local results!
I am located near Fort Myers, Florida and using Safari
-
Thanks! Glad you don't think that I am crazy because some people do.
-
Thank you! I knew that google would geotarget SERPs for my physical location, but this is the first time that I have seen them geotarget based upon search history.
IMO this stinks up the SERPs. If I wanted guitar stores in georgia I would have used that for my query.
-
I am not currently seeing this. I don't think you're crazy though, as I can definitely see google testing things like this out.
I failed to reproduce your results, but I tried a combination of searches like this:
Q1) Oregon Q2) Guitars
Q1) Portland Oregon Q2) Guitars
Q1) Portland Oregon Q2) Guitar stores
Q1) Georgia Q2) Guitars
All gave me national results. I was using Firefox. Location set to United States.
-
Seeing this too. Ran my state and then "Kayak". Similar SERPs to what you described (using IE).
I thought Google has been experimenting with geo-locating searches with increasing frequency.
Opened FireFox and searched for "Kayak". Positions 1 & 2 were Kayak manufacturers.
Ran second search under my state. Then immediately searched for "Kayak" and got new SERP results. First two positions are now Kayak Tour Operations in my state.
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
-
Wanting to see when a user exists form site and its jopurney while on site please
Hi there, Wondering if you can help please? I am needing to know bounce rates on a landing page and also wanting to know if they landed on that page and went from that page to another and another... how can i look at that on MOZ please? Thanks Cass
Search Behavior | | AITLtd0 -
Setting up Google Analytics
Hello, I will try to explain what I want and I am not sure if that is possible. Firstly I want to set up my Google Analytics that I would know where people come from and how many of them click on Google Ads. For example:
Search Behavior | | FCRMediaLietuva
Facebook > 2% of them click on ads.
Google > 3% of them click on ads.
Direct > 6% of them click on ads.Or whatever the results are. Secondly I would like to take people coming from facebook and divide them into age groups. For example: 100 ad clicks from facebook.
25-34: 9 clicks (9% of total facebook clicks, 2% of total ad clicks)
18-24: 7 clicks (.....
35-44: ... and so on Thirdly I would like to know which group use the adblocker the most.
Any other stuff that would be interesting if working with adsense? I believe that this would help me working with my target audience the best on facebook. Should this be set as goals? Sorry I am not an expert of Google Analytics 🙂 Thanks for the help.0 -
& 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 -
Vanish from google after choosing preferred domain and fixing 40 duplicate meta descriptions?
I recently followed 2 Google webmaster suggestions to clean up the on page SEO for our site. I chose a preferred domain 2 weeks ago(to www.website.com) and fixed the duplicate meta descriptions that our CMS was setting to unique and more natural descriptions for each page. I did that 3 days ago. Webmaster tools still says they are duplicates because it hasn't crawled the whole site yet. We have been fortunate enough to have some of our blog posts be covered by yahoo.com, cnet.com, huffingtonpost.com, gizmodo.com, etc. That is some major backlink juice and, as recently as 2 weeks ago, our website would be the #1 result when searching Google for "ourwebsite.com exact title of very popular blog post". Now it is on the 3rd page, and the top results are the websites that linked to our blog post. So....what gives? Is there a specific area I should look at? Our should I wait for Google to fully index our whole site now that changes have been made? It should be noted that our rankings have stayed the same in yahoo and bing. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Search Behavior | | garyislearning0 -
When Googling site:mydomain.com what does listing order tell us?
To find all the pages on my site that are indexed by Google I can search using site:mydomain.com and it gives pages of results. But what does the order of results relate to? Is it page rank or strength? My list of pages doesn't appear to be in order of strength. And it's definitely not by age or alphabetical...
Search Behavior | | GregB1230 -
Safari Has Top Browser in Google Analytics?
I find this hard to believe but it looks to me as though Safari has jumped ahead as our top browser in the month of January. At first glance I would think it was combining mobile safari with desktop safari numbers but then on the 5th spot I see Safari(in-app) which after looking into could be multiple things from safari mobile, bookmarked pages, or Chrome for ios. Just looking for thoughts on this, are others seeing a large uptick in Safari traffic for desktops?
Search Behavior | | sknott0 -
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 -
Can we rank as a related search query on a competitor's brand keyword?
One of my clients wanted to know whether it's possible for him to rank as one of the related pages on Google for a brand name of a competitor. I honestly don't know whether it's possible so any ideas whether it's possible and if so, ideas on what can be done is greatly welcome. Thank you in advance. 🙂
Search Behavior | | als0070