Moving up on all data centers, but down on google.com

[Silicon]

OK so I usually don't watch google datacenters but one site I'm working on is so competitive that I feel I need to. Whats happening is that on google.com the website is moving downward but on all datacenters the site is moving up. In fact, I cannot find a datacenter that shows the site at such a low position as google.com shows. Allintext, title, url, etc are also moving up. Ive tried to find more information on why this is occurring but most posts are dated back in like 2006. These other datacenters have to have some relevance. Usually when all datacenters are showing movement google.com will follow suit. This is especially true when the movement is negative. This however really concerns me. Any thoughts?

[tedster]

I don't know that anyone has the inside scoop on this kind of thing. For quite a while now, on some searches at least, there has been NO data center that gives the same result set as google.com. Some extra step slips in at the last minute, some filter, some final ranking re-arrangement, some kind of secret sauce.

Part of it seems to be the geo-location step for the IP address of the user. I've been wondering lately if the human editorial correction slips in at the last minute, too, but I just can't figure out how to test for that.

[Silicon]

"human editorial correction slips in at the last minute"

unfortunately from where I sit this seems to be the logical explanation. I truly believe that the top 10 are hand edited with assistance from the algo. If you figure out a way to test for this please let me know...

[Hissingsid]

FWIW I think that whatever it is that Allinanchor measures has a big influence on this. If I do an Allinanchor search on google.com I see virtually exactly the normal google.co.uk results.

Cheers

Sid

PS Just checked this on a DC watch tool and see that some DCs are currently showing different Allinanchor results to the majority, for the main term I watch. eg 72.14.235.107 72.14.205.107 72.14.207.107 64.233.189.107 all have different results to the majority

[tedster]

I truly believe that the top 10 are hand edited with assistance from the algo.

No doubt about that at all. The algo's "pure" results are then human reviewed and the results are tweaked for what the Google 2006 patent calls "favored sites" and "non-favored sites". Here's the discussion we had [webmasterworld.com] when that patent first came out, and the reality of human input into the rankings is very much alive today.

I'm just not sure whether the editorial factor kicks in when the data center rankings are calculated or afterwards.

[rocco]

If some results really are hand edited then there are 2 ways, it efficiently could be applied (I am building search engines as well):

1. At the beginning of all filtering, in order to provide some start juice that would be passed down in the iterative process similar to PR passing. (I think it is unlikelyI

2. At the very end when all algo-ing and filtering is done, this is very likely is happening as IT COULD BE APPLIED IN FAVOR OF LOCAL/COUNTRY CRITERIA, which seems to play a major factor in today's SERPs. Switzerland and Germany have so totally different results in the top ten, it astonishes me every day.

[a_chameleon]

"For quite a while now, on some searches at least, there has been NO data center
that gives the same result set as google.com"

I see this too - and although I don't have any real extensive data to support
my gut feeling, it seems to me that I see the same results in DC's as I do
in Google.com for commodities, but for areas like news and services I see
different results.. and it's oddly capricious, too.

Just my $.02

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