Differing Google results?

link shows for me, not for my officemates

[erthworm]

For a certain search phrase, my company's site comes up #1 on Google when I go there, but my coworkers 10 feet away from me don't see our listing at all. Instead, they get the same results as me without our site at the top.

I know other people see what I see because an outside source pointed our ranking out to us in the first place. Why would my homies be seeing something different than me (and others)?

[Paully]

Maybe your homies should clear their cache...

[erthworm]

Yeah... that would make sense, except they hadn't run that particular search before.

[Marcia]

Google has a number of data centers, the computers are just accessing different ones. With keeping the search "minty fresh" there are changes every couple of days, so unless they were all updated simultaneously it's natural to be accessing slightly different results. Sometimes not so slight, this month it really appears to be shifting.

I've seen it and had someone see different results; it's not so easy to explain to those not familiar with it.

[Paully]

Not only applies to Google...

If you get consistent results on 20 computers, and a few off the wall responses on a few others. I would check the sys configuration of the others.

Otherwise, If all 20 have off the wall, random results, it is definitely not a system config problem.

I get almost identical results from any computers in my office. Likewise, I get almost identical results all month from any computer I sit down at, on a few KW's I commonly search.

Another question comes to mind is, how long have you ben listed in Google for? If its been more than 2-3 months, it makes me believe it is a sys config issue.

[erthworm]

Paully, what exactly about the sys config would cause this to happen?

[Paully]

Could be many things, depending on what Google uses for results :)

Maybe someone set a country or language preference. Maybe some (adult or other) filters are on. Clearing the cache and cookies seems to solve many of the types of problems.

Does your situation fit into the category of 20 working one way and a few consistently giving wacky results? Did you try clearing your cache, temp files, and cookies?

[erthworm]

I cleared my cache and we now don't show up at the top like we did before. :( I liked it better when we did. It definitely wasn't just me, since we got an inquiry from someone that searched on the phrase in question and found us yesterday. Thanks for the help.

[Marcia]

We've been around this block before. It's the different data centers.

[Paully]

I cleared my cache and we now don't show up at the top like we did before.

Sounds like everflux, data center's and cache are all your culprits. Wait till you have a solid listing, and it will be avail at all times.

Just for curiosity, I checked all 7 datacenters(I thought it was 5, wow G), and the results are identical for major KW's. A little everflux is visible when using more obscure KW's, across the datacenters.