#2 on google, but 1/2 hour away #11! What gives?

7 replies
I'm working on my first site and am making slow but steady progress thanks to all you .

I just checked my google ranking for my key phrase at home and I'm ranked #11. Then I drive a half an hour to work and I'm #2? Are search terms that geographically sensitive?

My key phrase is very generic and has nothing to do with location. What is your experience? How do I know when I'm really #1 nationwide? etc?
##11 #1 or 2 #geography #google #hour #location #rank
  • Profile picture of the author TheWealthSquad
    Were you logged into your gmail account or another one of your google accounts?

    They provide some customized results based on search history if you have it turned on.

    The easiest way to measure where you rank is to use a browser in privacy mode. Chrome, IE and Firefox all offer it I believe.

    Make sure you are logged out of all accounts as well.

    You can also use a third party program or site to test it. Market Samurai offers keyword rank tracking as well as several websites. Firefox has a couple of plug ins that will do it as well.

    I believe they use proxies to account for this issue but am not positive.
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  • Profile picture of the author ajensen
    Interesting, so then perhaps it really shouldn't be that sensitive?

    I checked on my Wife's computer and she was logged into gmail in Firefox. I actually checked in IE though.

    I'll check again but keep a watchful eye on the privacy mode issue. I'll let you know what I find. Thanks.

    Everyone else out there have the same opinion/experience?
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
    Clear your cookies between searches, too!
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  • Profile picture of the author ajensen
    I cleared my cookies, etc. and went into private viewing and I'm now ranked #11 instead of #2. So that seems to do the trick.

    Was hoping I was number #2 insead of #11 :-), but at least I'm getting consistancy now. Thanks all!
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  • Profile picture of the author moneyblogger1
    You can also use www.seoserp.com to check your ranking. I find this the best as I always forget to delete my cookies.
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    Suck a video? Hate creating them? Let us do it for you. Get a custom video for 1/10th the industry standard price: http://www.angulusmarketing.com/Video.html

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  • Profile picture of the author redfc
    From my observation, the position isn't fixed yet for the set of keyword you use. Google is trying to figure out which one fits in #1, #2 and so on.

    All this position swapping will take awhile (a week or two, I've seen up to a month), usually the one that is going to fit the #1 position will be at the bottom or middle and finally you'll find it on top. It will stay until some other site come along to fight for the top spot.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    I've seen the index fluctuate within an hour, not a big deal
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