Do the sites I click on appear higher in ranking?

[AgentOrlando]

I've been out of the SEO loop for a couple years.

I built a site back in 2003 that has held up pretty well on Google.

However, my friend and I recently performed a search for the broadest phrase and the site I built came up #1 out of 22 million+ sites.

It doesn't make sense that site can top the association websites.

Has Google started placing the sites one clicks on already higher up in the results?

Thanks in advance!

[tedster]

Yes - if you are logged into a Google account when you click and when you search. This effect of Personalized Search will vanish if you log out. But it can be tricky if you are using various browsers, logging in and out of various Google services, etc.

[AgentOrlando]

Thank you for the answer!