All Google IP's go to same IP?

[dickbaker]

I thought this subject had been covered before, but I wasn't able to find it.

I'm trying to see how a particular page of mine is ranking on different datacenters for a search phrase. I empty my cache, clear any cookies, and type in the IP, then the search phrase.

When I find my page and mouse over the cache link, it points to the same IP. In the past it was possible to know which datacenter you were accessing by mousing over the cache link.

Has that changed, or is Google sending searches to just one IP in a specific locale regardless of which one you try to access?

[tedster]

Sorry, it has never been possible to learn the responding datacenter by mousing over the "cache" link - that's a big old webmaster myth, there. The only way to know for sure has always been to look directly at the IP address that responded. One common tool for doing that is to use Firefox with the ShowIP add-on installed.

There do seem to be some changes in how Google deals with requests made directly to an IP address, at least some of the time - see [webmasterworld.com...]

[dickbaker]

Thanks, Ted. I installed the Firefox add-on. If I enter an IP and get to the search box, the add-on shows the IP I typed in. When I get to the search results page, though, it's an entirely different IP. In fact, it keeps going to the same IP.