What does this mean? Am I on the first page or not?

by 9 replies
11
I'm currently doing some local SEO for my fathers company. This morning I woke up and typed in the keywords I am trying to rank him for in google.

Pretty excited when I saw that he was now #6 on page one. Heres where it gets weird.

I went to 4 other computers in my house, and he doesn't show up till page 2 when I search for him on those computers.

I have cleared all search history, cookies, etc from all computers and I still get the same results. When I use www.whatpageofgoogleamion.com it still shows him as #6 on the first page.

This isn't making sense to me at all, any ideas?
#search engine optimization #page
  • Try appending &pws=0 to the search URL and hit Enter. That should turn off personalization more reliably. Are your other computers all on the same network? They may be mysteriously hitting different datacenters, and result are likely to vary across them. There are various plugins that let you see the IP address of the page you are visiting. If you install such a plugin your can compare the datacenters you are accessing.

    You can also see in Google Analytics whether your traffic from that keyword has increased comparably. If it has, it's probably your ranking for it has probably improved for some people.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Yes they are all on the same network. I turned off personalization and on my computer it still shows as number 6.

      I tried to access it from my wireless network through my phone as well but it doesn't show up until page 2 again, yet all search engine rank checkers show me as number 6 regardless of which computer I check them from.
  • Just keep getting backlinks and don't worry about the position, it's still not at #1 so keep going. If it's local have you tried google maps business listing?
    • [1] reply
    • I have him listed on google maps. I know I probably wont see a huge influx in traffic till the site hits #1 but its still frustrating not being able to figure out what is causing this.

      The usual tools I use to check my ranking are all showing page one, and I am not sure how to accurately check how his rankings are doing if my computer seems to be the only one showing page one as well.
  • I would also like to ask the members of this forum, what way do you check to see if your getting the proper rank result? I also want to make sure my computer is not affecting my results.

    I know about clearing cache and being logged out of gmail, but what tool do you trust to show you the proper ranking?

    Even with the installed tool that I have, I worry my computer affects it.
    • [1] reply
    • Well, i doubt that Google is doing personalization at the CPU ID lelve, but you never know with those guys!

      I think the way to work this out is to check the datacenter IPs And once you run a search you can replace the w w w.google.com part with a datacenet's IP and check if the results change.

      Also try this: run your search query and then trim your search URL, for example, form this:
      h t t p://www.google.com/search?q=this+is+a+test&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US373

      to

      h t t p://www.google.com/search?q=this+is+a+text

      and see if the results change.

      Can you try this: create a new Google account and then remove Web history from it, then run your query while logged on into that account.
      • [1] reply
  • I am having problems with this too...
    Google says you can turn off web history and its customization that results by logging out of your Google account. Thats simple.

    But I am still having issues...the truly amazingly & reliable Market Samurai lists my site at #12 for a keyword but my search when I am logged out of google and adding the &pws=0 (just to be sure) still shows me at #2.
    I want to believe I am #2 but think #12 much more likely.

    I know Big G customizes results by IP which is how they pull up Google local results even if there is no location in the search term ...

    This plays havoc with SEO work I do for clients ...I tell them they are at #2 and yet if they search they see themselves at #12...simply due to IP? If I want to get them to page 1 how will i ever truly know if they make it?
    • [1] reply
    • I find it frustrating as well. It's hard to prove rankings to your clients when the results vary so much from one computer to another.
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