Google Search Results - Behavioural Targeting?
| Manoj Jasra - Thursday, November 23, 2006 4 Comments |
Why is it that 2 people in different cities can see different rankings for the same keyword on Google (Not just a difference of 1 or 2 rankings, rather 30-40+ rankings)? This is what we have noticed for some of our clients. We know it's not a data-center issue because we've looked into it.
- Could it be based on behavioral targeting?
- Is it to do with Geo Targeting based on where the domain is hosted?
- What about Search History?
If anyone can help add some insight on this topic please post a comment or give me a shout at: mjasra@gmail.com
It's possible that it has to do with regional targeting, but it's definitely more than only that. Once I noticed a very strange search result for our company on a certain keyword in Google.
I discussed it with my colleague who sits 2 desks from me, and he didn't find that search result, although we were using the same domain and the same search criteria.
It must have something to do with the other tools Google offers: search history & bookmarks, reader, base, co-op, etc. All these tools are designed to personalize your search results.
We had similar thoughts in that we know many users have gmail accounts which they are signed into while searching on Google.
Behavioral Targeting (or personalized search in this case) is definitely one of the biggest factor affecting this. I have noticed similar behavior.
Other than that Soulshaker’s different results could also be attributed to his/her friend and he/she hitting different servers.
- Anil
http://webanalysis.blogspot.com
Thanks Anil,
Here's a related article that I found.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/bruemmer/006122.html
Anyone have find any other resources?