Strange Behaviour - Varying rankings across browsers and devices

[reidsteven75]

Hello,

I noticed something quite strange over the last week with one of my keywords.  I'll explain the lead up to this so it makes more sense.

I started SEO work for a client about 3 months ago.  One of the keywords I'm trying to increase their ranking for is "auto body calgary".  I made a specific landing page for this keyword so it could be better targeted.  After I made this landing page I saw their root domain (not the landing page) increase about 10 rankings to number 9 in 2 months.   It hung at number 9 for about a month, and then the last month it has decreased to rank 15.    For interest sake I searched "auto body calgary" on multiple computers and browsers.  On one of the computers I used Safari and my landing page showed up in the number 2 position.  On my mobile phone and personal laptop I used Safari and it showed to root domain ranked at 15.  I used Google to search every time and wasn't logged in to my Google account on either of the searches. The only thing I've done in the last month is updated some of their directory submissions so they are more consistent.

Out of this I have two questions:

1. Why would different browsers show considerably different rankings and pages for a keyword?

2. Since my landing page is more targeted to "auto body calgary" is Google trying to show that page instead of the root domain?  (my root domain has considerably more authority than this landing page)

Thanks to anyone who can offer insight!

[reidsteven75]

Great thanks Moosa,

I'll stick to that standardized query and that should help with the inconsistencies.

[reidsteven75]

Hey Federico,

Thanks for the response.

I think sticking to that standardized query will be the way to go.  I guess at the end of the day it's just odd behaviour.

[MoosaHemani]

In my opinion results can be different for different devices and this is because Google see a website for desktop different and for a mobile the algos react differently to a website!

If you are facing different results on multiple browsers than this must be the search history or personalized results. I would recommend you what Fede said!

Use this query (https://www.google.com/search?q=auto%20body%20calgary&gl=us&pws=0) and you will see the standard results instead of personalised ones!

hope this helps!

[FedeEinhorn]

Ohhh the 1 million question... Why Google show different results depending on the browser, computer, connections, etc...?

It is certainly known that Google WILL show what "he" thinks might be more useful to the user searching. They DO track what you searched, visited, etc, even if you are not logged in, they WILL deliver personalized results based on several (yet unknown) variables, some are location, device, browser, etc. You can even search with the same account, computer and different browsers and get different results, for some reason they think a search within the same device, and account, but with a different browser should deliver different results (this isn't always the case, but in my experience I found this kind of results regularly). The device is "understandable", pages may look different in different devices, so perhaps a page that is ranking well on a desktop, doesn't rank too well on a mobile device as it may be "unreadable" while on an iphone (for example). So is the location, they want to deliver more local results, and that is also understandable.

What I would suggest is this cases, is that you take ONE of the ways you track and then stick to it to run your reports, Moz uses (I think) this type of query: https://www.google.com/search?q=auto body calgary&gl=us&pws=0 (I almost find the same results as they report using that).

To answer your second question, it is also kind of a mystery, we cannot control what Google shows, and they will show what they think is for the best interest of the user. So even if you create a landing page for a specific word, that word SERP may show your homepage instead of the page you created or the other way around... Who knows...