Internet Explorer and Chrome showing different SERP's
-
Well the title says it all really.
Same query, different browsers, same computer and different search results.
I thought at first it may have differed because I was logged into my google profile on chrome but I logged out and tested and still different results.
Is this normal ?
-
Although still different results between IE and Chrome..
-
Using the private / incognito browsing in a browser can also help, as it means it's not using search history from the browser or anything stored in cookies. You're still getting geography in your queries (people in different areas see different results for the query 'pizza' for example), but it is a start.
-
Yeah, I didn't figure that out for a while, either.
-
When checking results I use a ranking tool such as the one on SEOMoz, but if I want to do a quick look up for just a couple of terms I use the Ad preview tool in Adwords (you can set by country and it's not personalized).
-
Thank you for that.. Thats a game changer.. Now the results I thought I was doing well on are all screwed up.
-
Search results are personalized even when you're logged out, based on your search history in that browser. You can turn that off, though.
http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54048
-
But that would imply that either IE or Chrome is tracking my searches without my permission, I had assumed all search results were natural unless I turn the personalisation feature on in G+
-
My guess is personalization. Did you clear your cache and cookies for both browsers? Otherwise, check out this Q&A http://www.seomoz.org/q/different-results-in-chrome-firefox-and-ie.
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
-
How google bot see's two the same rel canonicals?
Hi, I have a website where all the original URL's have a rel canonical back to themselves. This is kinda like a fail safe mode. It is because if a parameter occurs, then the URL with the parameter will have a canonical back to the original URL. For example this url: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ has this canonical: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ which is the same since it's an original URL This url https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter has this canonical https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ like i said before, parameters have a rel canonical back to their original url's. SO: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter and this https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ both have the same canonical which is this https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ Im telling you all that because when roger bot tried to crawl my website, it gave back duplicates. This happened because it was reading the canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) of the original url (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) and the canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) of the url with the parameter (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter) and saw that both were point to the same canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/)... So, i would like to know if google bot treats canonicals the same way. Because if it does then im full of duplicates 😄 thanks.
Technical SEO | | dos06590 -
Are backlinks the reason for my site's much lower SERP ranking, despite similar content?
Hi all, I'm trying to determine why my site (surfaceoptics.com) ranks so much lower than my competitor's sites. I do not believe the site / page content explains this differential in ranking, and I've done on-site / on-page SEO work without much or any improvement. In fact I believe my site is very similar in quality to competitor sites that rank much higher for my target keyword of: hyperspectral imaging. This leads me to believe there is a technical problem with the site that I'm not seeing, or that the answer lies in our backlink profile. The problem is that I've compared our site with 4 of our competitors in the Open Site Explorer and I'm not seeing a strong trend when it comes to backlinks either. Some competitors have more links / better backlink profiles but then other sites have no external links to their pages and lower PA and DA and still outrank us by 30+ positions. How should I go about determining if the problem is backlinks or some technical issue with the site?
Technical SEO | | erin_soc0 -
Can the Hosting location of image files have a negative effect if 'off-site' such as on the devs own media server ?
Hi Can the Hosting location of image files have a negative effect if 'off-site' such as if they are on the developers own media server ? As opposed to on the actual websites server or file structure ? In the case i'm looking at the image files are hosted on a totally separate server (a media subdomain of the developers site server) from the subject sites dedicated server. Will engines still attribute the properties of files hosted in this manner to the main website (such as file name, alt attributes, etc etc) ? Or should they really be on the subject sites server own media folder ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Inconsistent page titles in SERP's
I encountered a strange phenomenon lately and I’d like to hear if you have any idea what’s causing it. For the past couple of weeks I’ve seen some our Google rankings getting unstable. While looking for a cause, I found that for some pages, Google results display another page title than the actual meta title of the page. Examples http://www.atexopleiding.nl Meta title: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring - Atexopleiding.nl Title in SERP: Atexopleiding.nl: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring http://www.reedbusinessopleidingen.nl/opleidingen/veiligheid/veiligheidskunde Meta title: Opleiding Veiligheidskunde, MBO & HBO - Reed Business Opleidingen Title in SERP: Veiligheidskunde - Reed Business Opleidingen http://www.pbna.com/vca-examens/ Meta title: Behaal uw VCA diploma bij de grootste van Nederland - PBNA Title in SERP: VCA Examens – PBNA I’ve looked in the source code, fetched some pages as Googlebot in WMT, but the title shown in the SERP doesn’t even exist in the source code. Now I suspect this might have something to do with the “cookiewall” implemented on our sites. Here’s why: Cookiewall was implemented end of January The problem didn’t exist until recently, though I can’t pinpoint an exact date. Problem exists on both rbo.nl, atexopleiding.nl & pbna.com, the latter running on Silverstripe CMS instead of WP. This rules out CMS specific causes. The image preview in the SERPS of many pages show the cookie alert overlay However, I’m not able to technically prove that the cookiescript causes this and I’d like to rule out other any obvious causes before I "blame it on the cookies" :). What do you think?
Technical SEO | | RBO0 -
New domain's Sitemap.xml file loaded to old domain - how does this effect SEO?
I have a client who recently changed their domain when they redesigned their site. The client wanted the old site to remain live for existing customers with links to the new domain. I guess as a workaround, the developer loaded the new domain's sitemap.xml file to the old domain. What SEO ramifications would this have if any on the primary (new) domain?
Technical SEO | | julesae0 -
Webmaster Tools vs Screaming from for 404's
Hey guys, I was just wondering which is better to use to find the 404's effecting your site. I have been using webmaster tools and just purchased screaming frog which has given me a totally different list of 404's compared to WMT. Which do I use, or do I use both? Cheers
Technical SEO | | Adamshowbiz0 -
Why are Google search results different if you are log'd into Google or not?
I get different results when I'm log'd into my Google account associated with my website than if I'm not. The same country is occurring. So how can I rely on the google results I'm seeing? For instance my site is page 1 with the improvements I made based on SEOMOZ if I'm log'd in. Yet I'm not on the first 25 pages if I'm not logged in.
Technical SEO | | Romana0 -
How Best to Handle 'Site Jacking' (Unauthorized Use of Someone else's Dedicated IP Address)
Anyone can point their domain to any IP address they want. I've found at least two domains (same owner) with two totally unrelated domains (to each other and to us) that are currently pointing their domains to our IP address. The IP address is on our dedicated server (we control the entire physical server) and is exclusive to only that one domain (so it isn't a virtual hosting misconfiguration issue) This has caused Google to index their two domains with duplicate content from our site (found by searching for site:www.theirdomain.com) Their site does not come up in the first 50 results though for any of the keywords we come up for so Google obviously knows THEY are the dupe content, not us (our site has been around for 12 years - much longer than them.) Their registration is private and we have not been able to contact these people. I'm not sure if this is just a mistake on the DNS for the two domains or it is someone doing this intentionally to try to harm our ranking. It has been going on for a while, so it is most likely not a mistake for two live sites as they would have noticed long ago they were pointing to the wrong IP. I can think of a variety of actions to take but I can find no information anywhere regarding what Google officially recommends doing in this situation, assuming you can't get a response. Here's my ideas. a) Approach it as a Digital Copyright Violation and go through the lengthy process of having their site taken down. Pro: Eliminates the issue. Con: Sort of a pain and we could be leaving possibly some link juice on the table? b) Modify .htaccess to do a 301 redirect from any URL not using our domain, to our domain. This means Google is going to see several domains all pointing to the same IP and all except our domain, 301 redirecting to our domain. Not sure if THAT will harm (or help) us? Would we not receive link juice then from any site out there that was linking to these other domains? Con: Google will see the context of the backlinks and their link text will not be related at all to our site. In addition, if any of these other domains pointing to our IP have backlinks from 'bad neighborhoods' I assume it could hurt us? c) Modify .htaccess to do a 404 File Not Found or 403 forbidden error? I posted in other forums and have gotten suggestions that are all over the map. In many cases the posters don't even understand what I'm talking about - thinking they are just normal backlinks. Argh! So I'm taking this to "The Experts" on SEOMoz.
Technical SEO | | jcrist1