Not a day goes by when there isn’t something upsetting to learn about Internet scams, infiltration of personal information, hacking into financial, credit card or corporate accounts, and more. But what I am about to discuss is something different altogether. It has to do with how your search engine rankings may be affected by a number of different issues which may give you a false reading on the true picture.
As a website developer, it is my responsibility to make sure the SEO I incorporate is achieving top billing when searches are made using applicable terms. Likewise, I am sure anyone with a website, businesses or otherwise, would like to know how to tell whether their search rankings are true.
One of my clients recently added a new attorney to his firm and agreed it was a good time to address the presentation of his entire website to incorporate this new information in a long-overdue modernization of his ten-year-old web presence. Although the original site was quite informative, it lacked much of today’s necessary SEO content both visible and invisible, as well as a more technically sophisticated navigation system, etc.
As part of a regional network of available attorneys in New York’s Hudson Valley, my client experiences fierce competition to gain top billing in search results. Having come to the realization that most of his new business is a result of online searches as opposed to the older methods of yellow page listings or newspaper advertising, he expressed intense interest in our SEO expertise which became a prime focus of this exercise.
Shortly after completing the website work, submitting a site map to Google and registering his site with Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, I began to investigate how his site was appearing within search results when a variety of search terms were used to find him.
What I found prompted me to conduct a full-fledged study of three subjects of interest on a mix of the various browsers, search engines and platforms. It seems that depending on the search engine used, results can vary widely, but most especially if the person conducting the search is signed into an account with the company of which the search engine is a part. Specifically, I am shocked to say, that it was Google who was most guilty of skewing search results in favor of the person signed into their Google account, in comparison to searches conducted when not signed in.
How did I discover this? With my husband in another room on his older Mac laptop computer’s Safari browser, I called out in surprise that when I searched “top NY advertising agencies” on my new iMac’s Mozilla Firefox, my own website came up on page one of the search results. Arguably one of the toughest, most competitive categories out there, considering that the most famous agencies in the world should come up first, I was flabbergasted with my ranking…until my husband said he saw no such listing when he conducted the same search. It occurred to me that maybe because I had a Google account or maybe because I was signed into my Google account, my search results were affected. Sure enough, when I signed out, my position in the same search was now on page 8, as the sixth listing, among 33,900,000 results. While not an impressive ranking, it certainly seemed a lot more realistic, considering that I am a single-person agency competing with many very well-known internationally established agencies with sometimes hundreds of employees worldwide.
That made me wonder about all search engines and all search results. I decided to do a scientific study of my own using tough categories for my client and my own company. For my client, I searched “Bankruptcy Lawyers in Poughkeepsie NY.” For myself, I chose two of the most difficult categories because of so many competitors: “Web Design Poughkeepsie NY” and “Top New York Advertising Agencies.”
Here are my results: My client’s website showed up on page 1 as the first or second listing when searched on Bing, Yahoo, Google, and Ask on both Mac and Windows platforms and browsers, whether I was signed into any related accounts or not. For the two searches I conducted for my own website, the results were a little different. For the “web design” search, my company was listed on page 1, page 2, page 5, page 8 and page 10, (among millions of results) on all the various browsers and platforms, pushing me about one page further from the front when not signed into any related accounts. For the most competitive category of all, “Top NY Advertising Agencies,” my company was listed on page 1 and 2, page 8 and 10, and nowhere to be found with the Ask search, (from hundreds of millions of results) with the less impressive returns coming when signed out of any related accounts.
Clearly, my client has much better rankings in his category than I do for the two tough categories I chose to analyze for myself.
What does this tell me? A few things:
1. My categories have far more competitors than his;
2. My target of Poughkeepsie New York extends far beyond to include all of New York State, and surrounding areas, even encompassing the world because unlike a lawyer, I do not need a legal license to practice in a certain region and can service
clients anywhere;
clients anywhere;
3. If I had chosen to search words which are my primary SEO terms as I did for my client, my rankings in those searches would have been much better. Plus, search results don’t just include individual names of businesses, but also every pertinent article on the subject, as well as website directories which list hundreds of businesses categorized in various ways as part of their service. But this study was not so much to see where I ranked but how the different browsers and search engines provided different results, especially when logged into my accounts.
Signing into my Yahoo account did not affect my rankings at all; they remained constant in either case. But when logged into my Google account, my search results were labeled as “limited” with my account icon placed next to my website results, usually on page 1. While I did not notice those factors immediately, I still decided that Google is not trying to deceive me. Rather, could this be an attempt to flatter me? Perhaps, but it is nonetheless a humiliating experience to think your rankings are stellar when in fact they are not.
Having just searched Google to find out if there was any explanation for the above, I found a Google page explaining that Google keeps a Google Search History on every user which can be turned off, deleted or bypassed with a number of tedious operations. Also, Google mentions that different search results occur when signed in or signed out of one’s account, with the latter returns a result of one’s browser cookies which can also be deleted. Since cookies, in my opinion, provide beneficial function, in that your computer’s behavior is expedited and your experience in use is less deterred, I personally don’t prefer to delete my cookies. And probably this is the crux of the issue more than deceit or flattery: Google’s skewed results are a showing of “convenience” for the user, who may want to access search returns previously visited without the need to “reinvent the wheel,” so to speak.
So, as an alternative, I decided to conduct a search of top NY advertising agencies on a browser my husband never uses on his old Mac laptop which listed my website on page 17, of 3,570,000 results. No cookies or personal history involved there, for sure!
Cringing to think my true search rankings would be disappointingly lower than originally found, I decided to delete the cookies on my Opera browser which I primarily use to examine my website development work, and repeat my study. Carefully signing out of any associated accounts, I searched “Top NY Advertising Agencies” on Bing, Google, and Yahoo. My company came up on page 3, #6 of 108,000,000 results on Bing (vs. page 2, #5 in previous search when cookies were enabled). When I searched Google, my company came up less spectacularly on page 17, #5 of 3,560,000 results (which duplicated the results I had on my husband’s laptop on Mozilla Firefox.) Using Yahoo search, my company came up on page 3, #6 of 106,000,000 results vs. page 2, #5 when previously searched on another browser with cookies enabled.
A bit encouraged, I decided to search with terms more specific to the region I am in: Advertising Agencies in Hudson Valley. Much better than expected, on Bing, my company appeared on page 1 as the third listing of 97,000,000 results. On Google, my company was on page 1 as the second of 1,230,000 results. And on Yahoo, on page 1 as the third listing out of 97,300,000 results. And this is with cookies, search history and accounts totally removed or disabled!
For my client, I searched bankruptcy lawyers Poughkeepsie NY: on Bing, he was #1 on page 1 (of 245,000 results); on Google, again #1 on page 1 (of 12,800 results); on Yahoo, #2 on page 1 (but #1 on page 1 within a list of law firms where he was placed #1 on the list!) of 245,000 results.
Distrustful of these results, I decided to start up my Dell refurbished laptop computer which I bought to specifically examine my web work on a small, lo-res Windows PC platform. First, wiping out any cookies on Internet Explorer before searching, and certainly not signed into any accounts, I searched “Advertising Agencies Poughkeepsie NY” on Bing, Yahoo and Google, with my company coming up as #3, #3 and #1 on page 1 respectively (of some 870,000 average results).
With these statistics, I admit I am cautiously optimistic that my SEO expertise is still intact for my own website and for that of my client’s. However, armed with the knowledge that a computer’s cache (memory), a browser’s search history, and a user’s cookies (online behavior) can influence search results dramatically, giving a developer like myself a false sense of bravado, I also remind myself that constantly changing algorithms by the search giants add further mystery to the age of Internet domination. Hopefully, I have sufficiently proven that search results are primarily dependent on what search terms are used, how much competition a search category may have, and the brilliance and fulfillment of search engine optimization techniques utilized on and associated with the websites which show up on page one.
In the final analysis, the bottom line is that the Internet is a highly competitive landscape orchestrated by worldwide sources of intelligence. Ranking even close to the top of such a list is an extraordinary feat for anyone, let alone a single, self-taught, business professional with a passion for perfection. Humbling? Yes. Satisfying? No. Because the next obstacle is right around the corner!
Marilyn Bontempo, president of Mid-Hudson Marketing since 1975, has extensive experience guiding business leaders, directors, and professionals with successful strategies for business growth and sustenance. Long-term relationships have been established with law firms, medical practices, pharmaceutical companies, real estate executives, and a variety of other trade, corporate and industrial specialists. Her professional writing, editing, photographic, design and aesthetic specialties provide clients with proven methods of achieving successful branding and public image. Mid-Hudson Marketing is a top New York advertising, marketing, website and graphic design firm located in Dutchess County’s Poughkeepsie area specializing for more than 35 years in the creation and management of high quality branding for business success. With numerous prestigious awards to its credit, the firm’s services include full scale advertising programs; expert website development and search engine optimization; professional writing, editing and ghostwriting; blog setup and management; e-commerce and email marketing; outdoor and online billboards; trade show and point-of-purchase displays; sell sheets, posters, flyers, brochures, and catalogs; logos, tag lines and trademarks; photo enhancements; direct mail marketing; newsletters; public relations; and more: call (845) 493-0070. For more info, please visit:http://www.midhudsonmarketing.com
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