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Excuse me waiter... there's a Google in my SERP.
By Loon Attic
Sometimes having a task done for you as a convenience can have undesired results. Such is the case when during the course of performing a random check, on Google, of search terms for client's websites. At the time, the results returned seemed to be ranking unusually high, which normally would be an occasion to celebrate, however, it became clear that many of the websites were ranking uncharacteristically higher for their associated search terms. The confusion was compounded by the fact that the same browser on the same computer, using Google, would sometimes exhibit results that were more in line with the normal results and sometimes very skewed. Checking out different browsers on different computers also returned different results albeit more in line with what was expected from the tested websites. In talking with one colleague, it turned out that it was something that was also causing him some grief. His random searches would return results different from mine which were , at times, quite alarming. This was going to present a serious problem in reporting to clients if they inquired about the progress of their SEO campaigns. It was time to do some serious digging to research this issue. My starting point began with a colleague, who is my mentor and has years more experience, to query him regarding the ranking conundrum. It was a surprise to hear that it was also a situation he was experiencing on Google as well. It seemed that if he didn't know the answer, it might turn into a difficult problem to troubleshoot. It was then he mentioned that he found the only way around the innaccurate results was to use another browser that he knew returned accurate ranking. Now this got me thinking about the common denominators for me and my colleagues search patterns. Up till now, the only common thread seemed to be Google, so it had to be something that the search engine had incorporated into its architecture. Having an account with Google meant that there were several services active so it seemed like a good place to begin. It didn't take too long to spot an ignored service listed in my products called "web history". Now it wasn't really a new service as Google had various incarnations of it since 2007, it just wasn't something that had been paid attention to until now. This turned out to be the culprit and would have been found much sooner if the upper right hand corner of the Google homepage had been scrutinized with a little more attention. When someone signs up for a Google email account, a form has to be filled out with the individual's details. About half way down the page there's a check box to enable web history after the account is successfully setup. What this does is to record the individual's search history so that customized results can be returned when conducting a search on Google. It takes into consideration the terms searched for and the websites visited. Now Google calls this service a convenience for its clients as the search engine will present search results based on the search criteria it has saved. So depending on what and where your searches take you, Google will provide its own conclusions on what websites might be of interest and as a result save the web surfer time. This, however, is not the case for the SEO industry which relies on accurate reporting to its clients. Imagine the embarrasment if a customer was presented with skewed information, favoring its business rankings, only to have to admit that there was a huge error and the actual data isn't as impressive. Fortunately this hadn't happened to me or my colleagues as we use our own resources for data collection which are independent of the Google influence. There is, fortunately, a quick fix to the whole problem and it only requires a few mouse clicks. In the upper right hand corner of the browser, when signed in on the Google homepage, there will be a link titled "Settings". Clicking on it causes a fly-out menu with "search settings" and Google account settings". Choose the latter which brings you to the Google accounts page. Halfway down the page is "My products" that lists the services that are currently active for your account. Beside the words "My products" is a link called "Edit"
which when clicked will lead to the page where services can be removed. Click on "Remove Web History permanently" which will bring up a confirmation page. Check the "Yes, I want to permanently remove Web History from my Google account" followed by entering your Google password. Click "Remove Web History" which will result in a message indicating that the the Web History has been removed from the account. From this point on, all searches on Google will not be saved to influence the results based on your search history. This applies for every account opened on Google so always be aware of whether or not someone is signed in, which of course occurs on shared machines. Another way to avoid the entire web history scenario is to uncheck the box next to "Web History" during the signup process. A word of warning though. If the (Google) cookies for the browser are cleared, this will re-enable the Web History on the Google page, which requires that the entire process be repeated.
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Contributor's Note
If there is ongoing interest I will continue to write other related SEO articles based on my experience of optimizing eccommerce and commercial websites. Please remember these opinions and strategies are my interpretation of what constitutes effective search engine optimization.
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This intel was contributed by loonattic
loonattic
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May, 2012
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