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
-
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 -
Google ranks our competitor above us on 1000's of branded queires!!!
Hi all, I have noticed a very bizarre phenomenon in Google SERPs. When I search for a branded keyworks [Product + our brand].
Search Behavior | | ref.price
Amazon.fr appear above us on thousands of results. Google even ranks Amazon above us for queries like [ PriceMinister google plus]. I have tried to ask Google about it but I can’t seem to get an answer. Here is the topic I posted on Google’s forum: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/crawling-indexing--ranking/DFvTPr14o_o This seems like a mistake on Google’s side, some kind of semantic association with our two brands! Basically they are sending our customers to our main competitor even though they specifically searched for our brand (PriceMinister). I find the phenomenon quite interesting for the SEO community and frustrating for our company. Does anyone have ideas on this one? Do you think it's a bug from Google? Cheers Oliver0 -
Using Google Analytics to See What Time of Day Visitors View My Site
Hi folks, My company has Google Analytics setup for all of our websites, but I am a bit stumped on something. Now, this may not be possible, but am I able to see what time of day visitors most frequently view my blog? I would like to optimize blog post publishing for when I know we have in influx of visitors, yet I cannot find this information on GA. Any input would be much appreciated. Regards,
Search Behavior | | Instabill
Meghan0 -
Google Instant Search? REALLY?! Why is this the result???
First, this is one I thought I would never ask, but: Could this be true? I had noticed my MacBook Pro was eating some power and wanted to see if I could optimize my settings so to take advantage what battery life was available. (I swear that is the truth). So, I am at a Starbucks on someone and typed into Google search bar the following query - Best way to conserve - and, received the following instant search results before I could type - power on a macbook pro I am not putting it here as I want you to ask yourself what came up. I have attached a screenshot. My colleague arrived and without prompting she retried and got the same. So I am curious: Do you get the same result and why do you think that result is so predominant? This is funny. efuts.png
Search Behavior | | RobertFisher2 -
Why are brand, company name queries not showing up on Google SERP1?
I'm a bit confused today at Google's SERPs for a number of queries I've done. The first one that sparked my interest is when I searched for 'pinterest' (no quotes) and pinterest.com was NOT on the first page. In fact, the first pinterest.com result was on page 3 and was the page for somebody named Bil Chamberlain, who himself must be more related to the search term pinterest than pinterest.com itself. I've done this for a variety of search terms, signed out of google, signed in, and some companies' home page, or website in general comes up, and some do not. search for facebook, facebook.com is #1 search for united airlines, united.com's "Club and Lounges" page is on SERP 5. Am I missing something in google's search result methodology? I'd love to be directed to some article or discussion related to this because the last time I checked, most brand name or company name queries turned out company or brand home pages as reesult #1. I very well may just be behind the times. CCpjw
Search Behavior | | Buildings0 -
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 Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter: How does your site perform?
With Google recently releasing benchmarking data I am curious as to what you all see across the various types of website niches that you work with (eCommerce, news, blog, services, small business, etc). And how SEO'd websites compare with this "raw" data provided by google. We have one medium size (12,000 products) strictly eCommerce website that has a bounce rate of 37% and an avg time on site of 5:20 While two other medium size eCommerce/blog sites have a bounce rate of 57% and 59% with average time on site of 2:37 and 2:30 respectively. Finally, I manage a website for a local small business that provides business and home cleaning services. This site has a bounce rate of 45% and 1:40 average time on site. How do your sites perform in these areas? Is it typical to see this great of a disparity between strict eCommerce websites and those sites that are both informational and transactional in nature? What about other kinds of websites? Cheers!
Search Behavior | | prima-2535091