Same DCs but Different Results - is this Geofiltering?

[JackR]

During the course of today, my results have been served by the following four DCs:

209.85.165.103
209.85.165.104
209.85.165.147
209.85.165.99

In the SERPs from each datacenter, example.com has been placed at number 5 when searching for ‘red widgets’. However, if I search each of the four datacenters by pasting the IP into the address bar, I see ‘red widgets’ at number 2.

Is this discrepancy due to a the final application of a geofilter of some sort, or does the explanation lie elsewhere?

[eschulma]

Yes! I see the exact same thing! I'm so glad someone else saw this.

If I search with google.com -- one set of results. If I search with same IP address that google.com resolves to -- different results. And yes, I have been very careful, flushing the cache, being absolutely certain that the IP resolves exactly the same.

Of course, the problem with this is that now all the Google dance tools are (from my point of view) broken. According to the tools, I am at #2 for my important keyword phrase. According to my browser (unless I use an IP address), I'm nowhere to be found. No one else in my local area can see me either, but people in Colorado do. Don't know about anyone else, and don't know how to tell, if IP searches are not going to work.

I would really like to know what the heck is going on.

[eschulma]

I should add, I was not signed in, so personalization is not the issue.

[tedster]

I work with several international websites and we see this all the time when team members check the same datacenter from different locations around the world. The same dc will give different results depending on geolocation...and as you said, we're not signed in, so personalized results are not what we're looking at.

Even west coast US or east coast US can show a difference.

[eschulma]

Thank you tedster, that makes perfect sense.

The next question is: What should we do about it? If my sales go down, or up, it would be nice to know that the cause is that the east coast suddenly doesn't see us, or what have you, rather than a PPC issue or something else.

Are there any tools that have distributed servers in the U.S. to mimic the effect? I realize this would not be totally trivial...

[eschulma]

Thinking about this, even geofiltering does not explain why putting in google.com, version the IP address, makes difference in the results (in a case where google.com resolves to that IP). In both cases the computer is in the same place. Does Google only "geofilter" if an explicit IP is left off?