Fluctuating Yahoo Web Result Gremlins?

various tools, approaches, machines = odd fluctuations

[chewy]

One of my keywords looks (looked) to be getting good ranking based on a tool I use.

When I go to spot check and manually view how the ranking is going, I noticed something curious. The word was in a different place. Subsequent refreshing, loading different browsers, running the same search on a machine across town, etc all showed different results.

As I have a yahoogroups account, I am "logged in" and see the different result there.

At one point I was at 16, moments later I was at 50, then 53, then 56.

None agree with the tool's results consistently.

I am also using OSM through a well known provider, and it too shows different ranking for the same word.

I just checked it again - the tool shows 53, the actual web search shows 88.

Hmmm - is this an artifact of update, a series of servers, something random, something else, or am I seeing gremlins when maybe I should REALLY be taking the boat and going fishing?

[newwebster]

I have seen several different data sets over the last month. My rankings fluctuate as well. One data set that has an older catch of my site, has a lot less results. I have even seen a data set that was a snapshot of the top 10 reuslts of Google from about 3 to 4 weeks ago. Usually, if you clear your cookies out the data will change. If not, check back in a half an hour and it will change then. I do not know exactly why they are doing this, but I have been extremly annoyed at it. My traffic is dying as well.