Search Result Inconsistencies on Browsers

[WebDude911]

Hi,

One of our clients claims to get different results on Google using different browsers. For instance, on Firefox, the result he mentions is quite different than on IE. Has anyone ever heard of this before? Also, to add mischief to mayhem, he claims that a file that is supposedly blocked via Robots.txt file does not show when viewed via FireFox, but shows up via IE. Apparently, there may be an affiliate linking to this blocked page. Would that overrule the Robots.txt file on IE? And if so, why this difference only on one browser? What’s up with these browser differences on the same search engine?

Thanks!
-WebDude

[tedster]

Yes, this has been reported in our Google forum for quite a while. They apparently do all kind of testing across various user parameters for various periods of time, and the browser/user-agent is one principle parameter that they test variations of the SERPs on.

About that blocked file -- is it cached? My guess is that it shows in "url only" mode but even if it is cached at one Google data center, this wouldn't be the first time that robots.txt seemed to be ignored -- this is software and stuff happens. However, this is pretty much off-topic for the html & browsers forum and would get a more thorough discussion in the Google forum, if you care to start a thread there.

[WebDude911]

Thanks Tedster! ;-)