Does Google Search Boost "Results That I Shared"?

[WolfLover]

Google is so confusing these days.

Let me ask you this. I just put in a search term that one of my sites used to rank #1 and #2 for, for years. Then about two years ago, my site slid way down for this particular term. (these are ecommerce sites).

Just now I did a search for this two word keyword and it shows one of my smaller store sites as #6 and #10, (same type of item, but different style).

HOWEVER, before I get excited that my smaller site has these great search results, next to my link, it has a small blue head and shoulders icon and below my link it says "You shared this".

So, my question is, does my site actually rank for this keyword OR is the fact that I shared it, make it come up on the first page? Does not make sense to me and I would have "shared it" years ago as I cannot remember even doing it and certainly not from this particular laptop as it is new.

Thanks for your help!

[aristotle]

Check the traffic from google to this website. If the site's rankings really have improved for general searches (not just your own searches), then the traffic from Google should have increased.

[manny123]

You can also try private browsing mode in Firefox or IE (incognito in Chrome) and then do the search. This way, Google won't know it's you and you will know if it's boosting it just for you or everyone.

[RicoFlan]

My understanding is that if you are logged in, things you have shared will show higher in your search results -- in other words, what you are seeing is not what others will see.

Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken, but that's what it looks like to me.

[lucy24]

gwt should tell you where a given search term ranks on average.*

Analytics programs may be of help too. This is assuming g### analytics provides about the same information as piwik. In the screen that shows hits from searches, it includes the search term used, and where that term ranked for that user if it's in the top 10. So you only need to find one occurrence of the term you're looking at, and hope that that particular user didn't have wildly anomalous results.

Insoluble mystery: I can see how google analytics does it, since google knows everything, but how in the world does piwik know where a search term ranked if the term itself is concealed?


* I have always been mystified by the ones that give the "average position" as 1. Are they saying that the search terms that led people to a particular page are either at the top of the list or nowhere? Or that everyone who lands on this page used a search term so bizarre, even g### could only come up with one hit?