Google has been customizing personalized searches or website SERP's for quite a while. Recently, one of their updates has dramatically affected personalized search results - you may have noticed it with your own website. Previously you would have noticed a variation in search engine results while logged into your Google account. With Google's latest round of updates you get personalized search engine results all the time whether you're logged in or out of your Google account. This recent batch of changes has caused a lot of up and down SERP fluctuation for business websites.

As the art director for a leading website design companywebsite design companyundefined I hear a lot of chatter about websites going from page 1 to page 5 overnight. This can happen to anyone. If you check your websites enough then you have probably experienced this phenomenon. Many people attribute it to lazy link building programs. Though, no one can know for certain how Google ranks websites, I have noticed similar temporary website fluctuations when Google releases a new algorithm update or when they do their quarterly page rank update. Google's most recent set of updates has to do with localized search results which is the culprit in many of the recent website ups and downs.

Consequently, I've been getting a lot of feedback from site owners who are freaking out about seeing dramatic changes in their websites search results. Yes it's true that actual search engine positioning
and personalized SERPs can be significantly different. So, what's going on? First of all, there's no need to panic about this. There are several components at work here, but two important ones.

The first component is location.
Google is continually trying to improve how they deliver the best and most relevant website search results to those searching for companies, products, or services. In order to do this Google takes into account your location to bring you the most relevant search results. Google uses your IP address to deliver results based on the city in which you live or happen to be using the internet. This clearly affects user defined searches, but it also greatly impacts businesses with website SEO plans and search engine marketing campaigns. This new change can actually greatly improve local search campaigns for business websites, however it will skew how your business shows up in national search engine results. For instance, your website may be showing up on the first page of Google when you search for your key terms, but people outside of your area may be seeing your site somewhere on the fifth page.

The second component is Web History
This affects both searches done when signed into a Google account and searches done while signed out though results will still vary a bit. Google customizes your search results based on previous search activity using a search information stored in a browser cookie. This information is referred to as "web history". Having your web history enabled can really give you a false sense of your websites ranking, because it pushes your most visited websites to the top. So, if you happen to search your own website to check rankings a lot - you may very well see yourself in the top position when actually you could be 50 pages deep in Googles actual search positioning.

How do I turn off localized search or what can I do to see my websites actual search engine position? If you don't want to see localized search results so that you can get a better idea of your websites actual SERP here's what you should do.

A) If you are signed into a Google Account you can disable "Web History" by choosing to "remove Web History" from you Google Account.


B) If you are doing searches signed out of a Google Account then you can delete the "cookie" stored on your browser by clearing your browsers cookies and refreshing your screen. You can also disable history based customization by going to the top right corner of a search result page and clicking on "Web History". Then on the resulting page click on "Disable Customizations".

Please note that if you are not logged into a Google account simply disabling web history will still provide distorted search results because Google will still be providing you with localized search results based on your IP address. However, your SERP's should now be fairly accurate while logged into a Google account. To see unbiased results you can check your website using a proxy server
or a third party SERP checker website.

Chris London is the art director for a highly rated Website Design Company, and website SEO Company. He has many years of experience in website design and believes that one of the greatest assets a company can have today is a well designed website combined with proper SEO.

Tom Litchfield writes: @Max, yes searches in other countries will vary, because as you mention the different data centers, and Google local search. If you are in India and force a .com US search you will receive results from a default US data center. They might see results for local businesses in Colorado :)

Even within the US there are multiple data centers, so someone searching from California will see different results then someone searching from New York, even without local search results. 'hope this helps.

21:07:25 Sun Feb 7 2010 CST


1-clan writes: Hi, I have some questions to ask that Im not quite sure of:

1) when signed out of google account, if you do the "Web History". Then on the resulting page click on "Disable Customizations". Do you have to do this every time you use google or will it stay off until you turn it back on again?

2) when signed in to a google account, the same as above will the settings stay until you change them? or will it turn back on when you logout or restart your PC?

3) Are you saying we will now get better (more ture) SERP's when signed into google?

4) Why couldnt google just give the option on a new tab like images, news, shopping etc and add custom SERP's or something? Dont you think this would have been better as now if a new site comes out that better then all the sites I use for say SEO tips, I will never know cuz I already have my "custom search history" for this term?

Last one I sweer :)
5) We use advanced web ranking to check all our clients keywords, so I take it that should get the real SERP's for all our sites and keywords? or will this need to be setup on a proxy to get true SERP's?

Thanks in advance,
Nathaniel

10:43:35 Thu Jan 28 2010 CST


Max writes: I was hoping that i would get something new in this article, I am seeing this type of searches since years.
As far i know Google searches still vary with different data centers. If someone from US or India or China will look for some particular keyword for their website, there search results will be much different.
Can you please explain that if IP is recorded and someone from China or India looking for US website, especially particular keywords of that website, do their search varies on Google.com because these two countries has google.cn or google.in, So if someone is looking on .com does it varies?

7:23:40 Thu Jan 28 2010 CST


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