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.
Best and easiest Google Depersonalization method
-
Hello,
Moz hasn't written anything about depersonalization for years. This article has methods, but I don't know if they are valid anymore.
What's an easy, effective way to depersonalize Google search these days? I would just log out of Google, but that shows different ranking results than Moz's rank tracker for one of our main keywords, so I don't know if that method is correct.
Thanks
-
Thanks Rand, really appreciate it!
-
Hi Rand,
Thanks for jumping in and helping us all out. Your response is much appreciated.
Regards,
Vijay
-
I'm surprised at how well this still works, but it does:
- Use an incognito browser window to remove account personalization
- Use a query string like this: https://google.co.nz/search?q=your+keyword+terms&gl=us
With 2) above, you're removing the geographic bias of any particular region/IP address by searching in Google New Zealand, then re-geo-locating the search to the US. This will give you non-geo-biased results.
If you want to see how specific results look from a particular region, there's two semi decent options:
A) Use Google's Ad Preview Tool: https://adwords.google.com/apt/anon/AdPreview?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000
B) Use the &near parameter, e.g. https://google.co.nz/search?q=your+keyword+terms&gl=us&near=seattle+wa -
Yes, this is one of many factors for de-personalization. Also, there can be many more hidden factors which we are yet to discover.
I have done a lot of research on this matter, I use a specific PC with VPN dedicated to checking keyword SERP ranks for my clients, as they are from many different countries and having a different target audience, we try to replicate the results for different scenarios.
I hope this helps.
-
So am I correct that logging out and adding &pws=0 is not enough?
-
Hi There,
In addition to the methods suggested for de-personalization of results, there are additional few more factors.You may also like to read a blog post I wrote on my website Impact of Personalized Search results .
Incognito window doesn't mean you have deleted history of the previous browsing, you will have to clean the browsing history and cookies.
Use VPN or proxy to get results from different locations and countries. This gives you best Idea about your SERP status in different countries.
I hope this helps, please feel free to ask more questions by responding.
Regards,
Vijay
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
-
Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine.
Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0 -
Does Google ignores page title suffix?
Hi all, It's a common practice giving the "brand name" or "brand name & primary keyword" as suffix on EVERY page title. Well then it's just we are giving "primary keyword" across all pages and we expect "homepage" to rank better for that "primary keyword". Still Google ranks the pages accordingly? How Google handles it? The default suffix with primary keyword across all pages will be ignored or devalued by Google for ranking certain pages? Or by the ranking of website improves for "primary keyword" just because it has been added to all page titles?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google & Tabbed Content
Hi I wondered if anyone had a case study or more info on how Google treats content under tabs? We have an ecommerce site & I know it is common to put product content under tabs, but will Google ignore this? Becky
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey1 -
Celebrity Profile On The Side of Google For High Profile Person
Hello! When I google "Justin Timberlake" I see web search results and a sidebar. See image below: http://screencast.com/t/qwYeiFZQRzT How does one get their results to display like this? Is this something that Google creates automatically or is it something the celebrity initiates/creates on their behalf. Does the celebrity have any options to choose from as to what displays on this sidebar? What is this called? I look forward to your response. qwYeiFZQRzT
Algorithm Updates | | InternetRep0 -
Is it possible that Google may have erroneous indexing dates?
I am consulting someone for a problem related to copied content. Both sites in question are WordPress (self hosted) sites. The "good" site publishes a post. The "bad" site copies the post (without even removing all internal links to the "good" site) a few days after. On both websites it is obvious the publishing date of the posts, and it is clear that the "bad" site publishes the posts days later. The content thief doesn't even bother to fake the publishing date. The owner of the "good" site wants to have all the proofs needed before acting against the content thief. So I suggested him to also check in Google the dates the various pages were indexed using Search Tools -> Custom Range in order to have the indexing date displayed next to the search results. For all of the copied pages the indexing dates also prove the "bad" site published the content days after the "good" site, but there are 2 exceptions for the very 2 first posts copied. First post:
Algorithm Updates | | SorinaDascalu
On the "good" website it was published on 30 January 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 26 February 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 30 January 2013! Second post:
On the "good" website it was published on 20 March 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 10 May 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 20 March 2013! Is it possible to be an error in the date shown in Google search results? I also asked for help on Google Webmaster forums but there the discussion shifted to "who copied the content" and "file a DMCA complain". So I want to be sure my question is better understood here.
It is not about who published the content first or how to take down the copied content, I am just asking if anybody else noticed this strange thing with Google indexing dates. How is it possible for Google search results to display an indexing date previous to the date the article copy was published and exactly the same date that the original article was published and indexed?0 -
Best Place To Aggregate Customer Reviews?
There is a plethora of choice today for aggregating customer reviews. BBB wants to collect ratings from our customers; there a commercial options that put me in more control; yelp wants to rate me locally. Google... Given that I have some ability to steer customers toward my preferred review site, which one should I use? From an SEO perspective, have you noticed whether some these sites carry more weight or credibility than others? I realize it may depend on the type of business we are. In this case I represent a software company and their customers are USA/global, rather than local.
Algorithm Updates | | DarrenX0 -
Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
Hi girls + guys, a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k) It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de. We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors). After my first analyse I can say this: google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine) we are on 1st place with our domain name the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%) last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes. We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up. We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average. No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page) it's an old domain (2002) Lot of (good) inbound links Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty. So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?) My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess? What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A) Any idea would be appreciated! Best wishes,
Algorithm Updates | | GeorgFranz
Georg.1 -
Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently... Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute. For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc. I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes? Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs? What could be causing it to happen?
Algorithm Updates | | d4online0