Oftentimes, clients wonder why they might see different results for specific search terms on their search engines compared to what they see in their search engine rankings reports. There are many reasons for these discrepancies:

  • Do you visit your property site or search these terms frequently? If so, search engines will likely serve your site higher on the search results knowing that this is likely the site you’re looking for. (Please note, this same strategy does not apply to PPC ads).
  • Search engine ranking positions vary constantly based on several different factors – factors include:
    • A user’s search & website traffic history
    • A user’s location
    • A user’s IP address
    • Website content:
      • How much content is on the site
      • How frequently the content is updated
      • How relevant the content is to what the user searched
    • Site’s authority & authenticity
    • Website traffic
    • Search engine algorithm updates

Due to the various factors involved, your search engine rankings may be completely different from that of your coworkers or what you see reporting in your search engine rankings reports, which provides the average rank for specific search terms.

For more authentic search engine results, you can always use a private window or Google incognito mode when conducting searches.