Goggle search results different in IE vs Firefox?

[giftsun]

When I do a Google search for one of my keywords, African figurines, it's unranked if I am using IE, but shows up ranked #3 if I am using Firefox. My url is http://www.giftsunusual.com

Anybody have any idea why this would be happening?

Thanks

[JSeverson]

Hi,
I did a search for African figurines on Google using IE and you came up 2nd. On the other hand, using Firefox and performing the same search, I couldn't find you in the top 50.

I checked one of my client's main key phrases and it was the same result, if not as extreme. He was listed 6th using IE and 7th using Firefox.

I also tested Yahoo and MSN but there wasn't any difference between browsers.

Weird. Sorry I couldn't be of more help but at least you know it's not just you.

[giftsun]

Thanks for checking. I just checked again, now I've disappeared completely. Google %@#!!!%

[angelpure]

Wierd, to say the least. I just did a search that included your URL and still came in at #10, quotes had no effect either.

Rock solid #7 on Yahoo and MSN. Just another reason I have given up trying to figure out Google.

[pollescu]

I just checked for "African figurines" on both Firefox and IE and both returned your site at #2. Nice stuff you've got on the page, I love african art!!!

But differences between browsers it is still an interesting topic. Maybe Google's algo takes into account the browser you use, it seems weird, but who knows for sure the real equation??? I guess we'll have to spend some time checking differences to try to find an answer! :)

[andertoons]

I noticed this a few weeks ago too... You're not alone...

[Mel]

I really doubt that the different results are due to the different browsers.
Google has not been returning the same results from all data centers for the past two weeks or so, and IMO this may have more to do with it.

[Derek Davis]

Is there even a significant number of people who use FireFox or Mozilla over google or MSN or Yahoo?

[angelpure]

Originally Posted by Derek Davis

Is there even a significant number of people who use FireFox or Mozilla over google or MSN or Yahoo?

Derek,

Most of my sites show a less then 0.2% of visitors using Foxfire when visiting.

However, this difference in rankings has me concerened, I don't understand how Google's database can return different results for different browers unless there is an option in Foxfire that filters out sites with a low relevancy or if the returns do not contain specific key words.

Gordon

[Real-Estate-SEO]

Could be Google is tracking past search history in order to try and find more relevant search results (e.g. your results in each browser depend on your past search history in that broswer – which is tracked with a cookie).

I tried with your example and got different results and then deleted the cookies in both IE and FF and then got exactly the same results (however none of the SERP included your site).

Of course that's my own SWAG (Scientific Wild A-- Guess)...

[khajee]

There seems to be something funny happening with google. Two days ago my site did not come up for the keywords mind power, subconscious or subconscious mind in google's search results. Yesterday the site showed up on page 1 (5th, 7th, and 5th) for the same keywords. Today the site has disappeared. I also noticed that yesterday the search results generated 23-million pages for the term mind power - today it generates 22-million results. I don't think this helps you understand what is happening at google - but if it makes you feel better - you're not the only one that google seems to be toying with. If anybody has a suggestion or explanation - I'm happy to hear.
Thanks.
Simba-1

[jawn_tech]

Google has not been returning the same results from all data centers for the past two weeks or so, and IMO this may have more to do with it.

Hi Mel. I'm not following you, and wondered if you could explain. I understand the point about data centers, but I'm not seeing how that affects why they see different results in different browsers, from the same computer in the same location, at the same time.

I see people in different locations getting different results as mentioned above, but they're also seeing a difference between browsers, doing the same test.

[angelpure]

Exactly my point jawn_tech,

However, the results from Real Estate SEO are just as puzzling. Why would and SE want to use cookies to see if you have searched for a term before? To try and serve up different results?

Google just gets stranger and stranger everyday, and they seem to be serving up new datacenter results faster. Just seems like, when they used to crawl your site, it took weeks or even months for the "Dance" to happen, then you would show. I have a site I just submitted last week, it was crawled just two days ago, and it already shows. No waiting for the "Dance" there. I know they did away with that shuffle, but they have never changed datacenters that fast before.

Gordon

[jawn_tech]

Coincidentally, speaking of data centers, an issue that came up today (for me) has been a difference in locale using Yahoo getting different results. But I guess that's a whole other topic, unless there's a difference in browsers with Yahoo as well.... if that's even the case to begin with. One thing for sure is, people are getting different results from the same search engine (ie Google.com, Yahoo.com) for whatever reason, and that seems concerning for relevancy, imho.

[andertoons]

I've been seeing the same stuff and was going to post about it earlier. Google's datacenters seem to offering up all sorts of different SERPs for my site over the last two weeks. Sometimes pages disappear completely for a time, sometimes there are wild fluxuations. I'd love to know what's going on. Yahoo and MSN remain prety steady for me, and, I hate to say it, with the results I'm getting from Google I may start using Yahoo nd MSN for my normal day to day searching.

[andrija]

And the consistency of the PR is a bit 'off' lately as well.

If you check the PR displayied in the googel directory like:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Regi.../Job_Listings/

and open the pages in teh browser and check hte PR in the toolbar - it is waaaay off! :)

http://www.employireland.com has PR 6 in Directory and PR 4 in the toolbar?!

:)

ANd in the same time the page does not display in the Google SERP at all for any noraml keyword, but you really have to putthe domain name to get it.

In the same time - MSN shows it on top of hte SERP for ANY obvious keyword:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=jobs+ireland


So the real question is... Why do we all use Google?

[milonic]

Hi Guys,

Well, this is definitely happening and definitely very odd.

Just tried it with IE6 and Firefox and pretty much all of my searches are different. My initial thought was that it could have been locale or maybe a difference in the values that are returned from the browser to the server so I tried the same searches from another PC running the exact same OS and browser and guess what......? Difference results?

Now, both machines access the Internet through the same Firewall so will have the same IP address, http_user_agent, locale settings etc, everything will be the same apart from things like MAC address but Google have no access to that right? So why are two identical machines getting different results?......Intriguing

Will be digging a little deeper when I get more time but for now this is a mystery, Yahoo, as others have pointed out seems to be OK though :-))

Cheers
Andy

[angelpure]

Here is the real reason Foxfire searches are showing up better on Google than on IE. Our own WPW Feedbot has found this story.

Ingrid Marson's ZDNet article: Google keeping the wolf from Firefox' door, offers several details about the Google's relationship with the Mozilla Foundation.

Gervase Markham, a Mozilla staff member, said on Sunday that over the past year the Foundation has hired around 10 people, which would not have been possible without the money that Firefox makes by linking to Google.
"The Google deal has provided a significant stream of income for the Foundation," said Markham, speaking at the FOSSDEM conference in Brussels. "Without that deal the Foundation would not have been in a position to have hired some of the people that it has."


Following an agreement reached last year, Firefox includes Google as the default option for users wanting to search the Web directly, and also has its default start page hosted by Google. Markham didn't reveal full details of the Foundation's deal with Google. The main disadvantage of the deal with Google is that native language versions of Firefox are not permitted to change the default search engine to one that is more useful for searching Web pages in a particular language. "That [the Google deal] is why official localised builds are not allowed to change the search engine," said Markham. "In one way this is a restriction, but the deal has allowed things to happen."

We have to look no further!

[hmoulding]

As far as I can tell, displays are identical from browser to browser. What's different is that each browser stores its own version of Google's Preferences cookies. For example, when I started up IE - which I rarely use - I got different results at first, but a visit to Google preferences let me choose the same settings that I use in Mozilla, and then both browsers showed identical results for the search terms I chose. Ditto for Firefox on a different PC.

[diveonline]

Hi,

I also observed this inconsistent behavior of Google. I see that visitor saw my site at the first page, but pasting the referrer URL into address bar in IE does not show my site even at the next few pages.

That is what I see as a referrer in my web log:
http://www.google.co.nz/search?clien...=Google+Search

So, this is the fact that Google treats Firefox in a special way.

Taking into account that Firefox is a kind of rebel, I do not exclude the possibility that this Google's behaviour is just another kick to Microsoft's guts.
The only question remains: would web surfers use Firefox-Google or IE-Microsoft?

[Faglork]

Honestly, I do not believe that.

You say, you perform the "same search", one time with IE and the other time with FF. IMO this is not correct.

AFAIK you are querying a *different* data center, since a search in a second browser, albeit on the same PC/IP, opens a whole new "search session" on google. Coincidentally, it just *might* be the same data center your search is performed on, but in most cases it is not.

Now, if the data centers are not synchronized (yet), you get different results ...

You would have to "take over" the session from one browser to the other to make sure you query the same data center.



I wonder - is there a way to determine which data center gets queried?

Alex

[dj4uk]

I've been having the same experience. Ranked 13 in IE, 11 in Firefox.

I've got a Firefox Extension that allows you to change the User Agent String used by Firefox. If you have it set to Firefox it returns 11 if you change it to IE6 (still in firefx) it returns 13. So I don't think it is a different datacentre issue unless they are directing you to different datacentres by User Agent.

Weird thing is if I change the User Agent to be the same as Googlebot uses (or Opera or Netscape 4.8) I shoot down to number 15!

Weird!

DJ

[tcampione]

Originally Posted by Mel

Google has not been returning the same results from all data centers for the past two weeks or so, and IMO this may have more to do with it.

Ahhh Mel.... the master of understatement.

I would ask those who believe there is a different set of results for FFX vs. IE to conduct the same experiment that I have.

Try your search with both browsers, using the *same* Data Center. There's a list of DCs here: http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/inte...ta-centers.htm

Open both IE and FFX, enter the IP address for the same DC in both. Enter your search terms in both IE & FFX, then submit the search, switch to the other browser and submit there too.

I have done this a dozen times, and have not once found any difference in SERPs whatsoever. The order of sponsored links changes, but we all know that they are supposed to change with each search.

In my view, saying that Google serves more relevant results For FFX than it does for IE is much like saying that Google's results are always more relevant in the morning than at night. Both statements are IMHO illusions.

[Artyom]

Look at the differences between the queries Google provide for IE and FF

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=animated+websites

vs

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

at both cases we are on the same position #4, but queries are different!

My guess, taking into account the fact that Google owns domain - gbrowser.com and rumours about Google wish to brand
FireFox as its own browser....I assume they do make difference for IE and FF queries.

[Keimos]

Hi All,

Perform a search on Google and it will store a cookie. Perform tha same search and most of the time you will get identical results. Take a week between searches.

Delete the cookie and you get a clean search.

I have installed a cookie cleaner on Firefox that resets the google cookie to 0.

I think the search engines call it customer preferences or it may be a way to keep web site owners happy with there searches.

I experienced this sometime last year during the Florida shuffle and did not twig until I had a cleaning session on the computer.

Checked our keywords, in the top 10 happy.

Cleared the cookies and other garbage, did another check and our site had dropped to the mid forties. All within a day.

Is'nt it strange how money affects honest, mild mannered programmers?!!!!!!!!!

[pollescu]

I just checked both browsers doing this sequence.

- Errased Cookies and History for both browsers
- Checked manually that no file was hidden somewhere in the cache (cookies and history)
- Opened both browsers and directed them to same datacenter
- Performed 5 different searchs (3 words each)

Results: NO DIFFERENCE, I got the exact same results, I even checked up to 50 results!!! and no Difference at all!!!!

[MarkLondon]

Originally Posted by giftsun

When I do a Google search for one of my keywords, African figurines, it's unranked if I am using IE, but shows up ranked #3 if I am using Firefox. Anybody have any idea why this would be happening?

Cookies would be the only guess I would have on this as well. The user Keimos posted an explanation in this thread that makes sense.

We first noticed it when one of our users did a search and their results were different than ours on both our systems.

Usually we are pegged with a Google ranking on the first page of many standard searches for writing resources, and we know that and use it in our promotions.

Doing so resulted in a user contesting our advertising because we didn't show up on his MAC OS7 machine the way that we claimed we should.

Our XP systems all showed we were in #1 spots. His system showed us all over the map.

It's taken a while to sort this out and it's very annoying in that there is no consistency (until now) with what was causing the problem.

Cookies! argh!

So to kill these cookies on our machines what should we look for? And to block them how do we do it? What are the disadvantages to killing and blocking these annoying little pests that skew results anyway?

Any help input would be greatly appreciated.

Mark London
Freelance Writing Organization International
http://www.fwointl.com
Inkwell Newswatch (IN) ezine
http://www.fwointl.com/in.html

[Artyom]

Cookies! argh!

So to kill these cookies on our machines what should we look for? And to block them how do we do it? What are the disadvantages to killing and blocking these annoying little pests that skew results anyway?

Any help input would be greatly appreciated.

Mark London
Freelance Writing Organization International
http://www.fwointl.com
Inkwell Newswatch (IN) ezine
http://www.fwointl.com/in.html

Well it depends on what browser you use. If it's Internet Explorer do the following
Open Tools -> Confidential -> Advanced -> Block cookies (you can hit to block both types)

If you use FireFox

Tools - > Options - > Privacy -> Cookies -> Uncheck 'Allow sites to set cookies. If you want to prohibit Google to set cookies only open 'exceptions' and type in google.com and then set block

Disadvantages:
Google won't able to re-set your local settings, I mean if you you open Google from, let's say, Germany or Spain you won't able to set 'go to google.com' instead of 'go to google.de or google.es'
If you ok with it I can't see any other big disadvantages of blocking cookies for Google