Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Search results vary in chrome vs other browsers even in Incognito mode: Google's stand?
-
Hi all,
We use incognito mode or private browsing to check the Actual results which are not impacted by previous history, location (sometimes), etc. Even we browse this way, we can see the different search results. Why would this happen? What's Google's stand on this? What is the actual way to browse to get the unbiased results for certain search queries? I have experienced that Chrome will rank our own websites bit higher compared to the other browsers even in incognito mode.
Thanks
-
I agree with seoman10 in that it is often difficult to get accurate results, especially when a client is out of state and you are trying to replicate what they are seeing. One saving grace is that some tools, like SemRush actually allow you to set where you want to search from ex: if your client is in Little Rock Arkansas & you are located in NYC you can set your rank tracking from Little Rock and it is actually pretty accurate. Nothing is 100%, but we have found this is pretty reliable.
Cheers,
G
-
Google tries to personalize the results as much as possible, they use cookies and other types of identification data to try and track users and provide the most relevant results.
After you close chrome technically there is no method for Google to identify who you are, hence you may see different results.
Getting accurate search position results for tracking marketing progress seems a bit of a buzz word at the moment. It comes back to as Marketers/SEO's we need to track and monitor our efforts, on the flipside Google is trying to provide the most accurate result to the user often by means of personalisation. That is where you have an immediate conflict, for maximum user engagement (which all of us want) you sometimes have to sacrifice tractability.
Assuming you did manage to track personalised results you would need a lot of data about that person and their browsing habits to understand how you back best matched their search query. Most of us would quickly get ourselves lost in data. Does that make sense?
There are plenty of Serps checker tools around, but I sometimes have my doubts how accurate they are - Google definitely doesn't like them.
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
-
Getting indexed by Google scholar
Often my Google Scholar alerts result in exactly what I think they will: scholarly articles published in academic journals. However, today I got this completely non-scholarly article https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-exact-reps-that-make-you-grow and I have no idea why Google Scholar is indexing this site. I've read up on how to get indexed by Google Scholar, and this website doesn't seem to have the necessary requirements. I'm curious for anyone whose clients or industry need to get indexed by Google Scholar, what has worked for you?
SERP Trends | | newwhy2 -
URL Parameter for Limiting Results
We have a category page that lists products. We have parameters and the default value is to limit the page to display 9 products. If the user wishes, they can view 15 products or 30 products on the same page. The parameter is ?limit=9 or ?limit=15 and so on. Google is recognizing this as duplicate meta tags and meta descriptions via HTML Suggestions. I have a couple questions. 1. What should be my goal? Is my goal to have Google crawl the page with 9 items or crawl the page with all items in the category? In Search Console, the first part of setting up a URL parameter says "Does this parameter change page content seen by the user?". In my opinion, I think the answer is Yes. Then, when I select how the parameter affects page content, I assume I'd choose Narrows because it's either narrowing or expanding the number of items displayed on the page. 2. When setting up my URL Parameters in Search Console, do I want to select Every URL or just let Googlebot decide? I'm torn because when I read about Every URL, it says this setting could result in Googlebot unnecessarily crawling duplicate content on your site (it's already doing that). When reading further, I begin to second guess the Narrowing option. Now I'm at a loss on what to do. Any advice or suggestions will be helpful! Thanks.
SERP Trends | | dkeipper0 -
Ways to fetch search analytics - historical search query data from Google Search Console
Is there any way to fetch all historical search query data from Google Search Console ? Google allows us to view only 90 days report at the maximum. Does integrating google search console with google analytics tool solve this problem ?
SERP Trends | | NortonSupportSEO0 -
How create product category in Google Analytics?
Hi, I have a lot of product in my GA ecommerce. Does anyone how I can split my product by product categories in Analytics? E.g. Category: Blue cars, category: Yellow cars ...
SERP Trends | | Tormar0 -
Does my website need a search bar?
We're redesigning our agency website and during development we noticed our current design doesn't feature a mock up for a search bar. It was a simple oversight, but it got me thinking how valuable it really is. I noticed the Moz blog doesn't have a search bar (unless I'm blind) and was wondering who else has made the decision to get rid of it. We have a blog of almost 400 posts over the course of three years, unsure if that sways the decision in either direction. Is it better to just focus on good SEO instead of relying on a search bar nowadays? Opinions appreciated!
SERP Trends | | BopDesign0 -
How often do you submit to local search/citation sites?
I recently received a Network Solutions spam/offer email regarding their internet marketing packages. One of the "benefits" they cited was that they submit your information to local search/citation sites once a month, to keep it up-to-date. I don't know about you guys, but my clients' information isn't changing on a frequent basis. I remember when it used to be a tactic to submit regularly to the same citation sites, but that seems like overkill now. Does anyone still do this, or is NS just trying to make their product sound good? Do we need to update citation sites frequently, or is it enough to update when there are actual changes to make?
SERP Trends | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Best keyword research tool for Google image search?
What is the best research tool for finding search data specifically for Google Image search?
SERP Trends | | nicole.healthline1 -
Searching google without bias
i read a tip once and can't find the reference to that tip. It had to do with searching google without including the history of your searches to bias the result. The user was suppose to put a code at the end of the URL, like &pw or something like that. Anyone hear of this?
SERP Trends | | StreetwiseReports0