Google Datacenters - do they mean anything anymore?

[Garya]

I have been checking the datacenter over the years lately they are different then the results on all datacenters.
I am #1 on all data centers for the past week but #3 in results. Do they mean anything anymore?

[tedster]

It doesn't mean anything to me - in fact I never learned anything that was actionable buy querying Google via an IP address instead of the domain name.

[anallawalla]

I can't remember when I last looked up a DC directly, but it would be when a ranking had changed in the results and I wanted to see if it was the same in all the DCs. About two years ago it was common for me to see a slightly different SERP than the person next to me when this was going on.

About five years ago the Google Dance was a monthly occurrence and it was fun to watch the movements through the Google Dance tools.

[g1smd]

What is clear is that Google DCs often have several different sets of results going on, and that some are used for testing from time to time. Whenever a site has taken a drop I have a quick look at a small selection: seeing the drop on many of them I take as a real drop, or just limited to a few, I take it as a short term change that will revert on its own, within days to weeks. I also take in that just because I see a bad result, that doesn't mean that everyone else is (and of course the reverse is also true).