Google Results using trends to list results?

[Steven1976a]

In the past i have seen posts about google ranking sites by region. So for example if i was in UK and i searched for Fashion Jewelry they would/could show results for websites based in the UK. I presumed they would do this by recognising the computers IP address.

Yesterday, however I noticed something which i have not seen before and wanted to get some clarity on the issue. I did a search on Google for Fashion Jewelry on my home computer and our website Body Jewelry shopping, wholesale fashion jewelry, silver jewellery, costume jewellery factory Bangkok Thailand appeared on the first page at position 10 with mainly .com sites or USA sites. My partner doing the same search in Bangkok also about 2 miles away had totally different results and the site was listed on page 4. When i asked what was showing in his results most of the sites were .co.uk sites. He has been looking through a number of UK websites recently and therefore I came to the conclusion that google is looking at what/where we are searching and then returning the results based on that.

Another example i have noticed is for Google Product Search. We have been setting up a CSV file for google product search recently to submit all our products to it and therefore I have spent quite a bit of time in and out of Google Products. Now when i do any normal search in google not using google product base I get a short list of 3 products results at the top of my results page from google shopping (products). My friend who hasnt been checking or searching in google products previously doing the same search on his computer does not have the results showing 3 product results from google shopping at the top of the page.

Is google therefore starting to track everything we do and starting to be a bit clever and list what they think we are looking for? The reason i say smart is because my friend although he has recently been searching UK companies he doesnt want the results always to be dominantly UK results. Can he stop it?

[Duncan Pollock]

I think that only Google can give you the answer -- but I doubt that they will!
However, I'm willing to guess that the differences in results occur because each of you reaches a different Google server. There's a good number of them and the sense I have is that they don't necessarily show the same SERPs any/every time.

Duncan

[Janna122003]

Originally Posted by Steven1976a

In the past i have seen posts about google ranking sites by region. So for example if i was in UK and i searched for Fashion Jewelry they would/could show results for websites based in the UK. I presumed they would do this by recognising the computers IP address.

Yesterday, however I noticed something which i have not seen before and wanted to get some clarity on the issue. I did a search on Google for Fashion Jewelry on my home computer and our website Body Jewelry shopping, wholesale fashion jewelry, silver jewellery, costume jewellery factory Bangkok Thailand appeared on the first page at position 10 with mainly .com sites or USA sites. My partner doing the same search in Bangkok also about 2 miles away had totally different results and the site was listed on page 4. When i asked what was showing in his results most of the sites were .co.uk sites. He has been looking through a number of UK websites recently and therefore I came to the conclusion that google is looking at what/where we are searching and then returning the results based on that.

Another example i have noticed is for Google Product Search. We have been setting up a CSV file for google product search recently to submit all our products to it and therefore I have spent quite a bit of time in and out of Google Products. Now when i do any normal search in google not using google product base I get a short list of 3 products results at the top of my results page from google shopping (products). My friend who hasnt been checking or searching in google products previously doing the same search on his computer does not have the results showing 3 product results from google shopping at the top of the page.

Is google therefore starting to track everything we do and starting to be a bit clever and list what they think we are looking for? The reason i say smart is because my friend although he has recently been searching UK companies he doesnt want the results always to be dominantly UK results. Can he stop it?

Site hosted in US doesn't mean it won't get good rankings in google UK. Google has so many elements consider before ranking a site. One element is backlinks.

[activeco]

IP, cookies, browser settings (languages, supported character sets), toolbar settings, your previous (recent) search history... all play part in getting the "right" results.

[inertia]

Yep. Sounds like personalisation and localisation to me!

It is also becoming very difficult to ascertain positions in Google because fluctuations are so random and large nowadays.

[activeco]

And Duncan is right too.
Different Google servers/clusters are also part of the game, but they are usually determined by user's IP.