Why search results vary
submitted by markodonoghue on 30 September 2009
When you see search engine results, they are sorted by a very advanced algorithm. As well as analysing a website, search engines also taken note of where you are located. The idea is to give you the most relevant page of search results.
Google has many different data centres located throughout the world in order to cope with the huge demand. All of that web crawling, indexing, and searching takes enormous amounts of computing power, not to mention additional strain for Google's other products like Gmail.
Last time we checked, there were 36 data centres run by Google, with plans in place for more. This means, you may get different search engine results depending on what data centre gives you the information. You can even use Google.com in the same country and still get different results as local results have a slight bias.
The constantly changing index means it is possible to check your rankings one minute and get a different result the next! Generally though, results are fairly stable, generally changing only significantly on a weekly basis.
Submitted by:
Mark O'Donoghue
Associated Links:
http://www.webtacular.co.uk/articles/why-search-results-vary.htm
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