Welcome to this weeks SEO video blog, we often see our own and our clients listings move around in the organic search on Google.co.uk and get asked ‘why does this happen’?

The position of you website can be determined by a number of variables that Google’s algorithm takes into consideration, but we sometimes see variations with positions when nothing has been changed internally or externally on a website.

So along with changing internal structure or building authority via back links, what other elements can effect your positions? We could think of 4 main reasons:

1.) Data Centers (Internet Service Providers)
2.) Algorithm updates (Such as Google Caffeine)
3.) Web Preferences (Covered on a previous video blog)
4.) Location (Based on Your IP address)

Data Centers are a collection of servers that host the Google platform, Wikipedia suggests that there are currently at least 12 Google data centers. We often notice that using a different Internet Service Provider can give a variation in results. This could be due to ISP’s using different data centers, some of which may list you website differently.

Algorithm changes like the recent ‘Caffeine’ update are usually rolled out to a single data center initially then across the rest once the implementation has been successful. Algorithm updates can change your websites position as a competitor may satisfy new guidelines and restrictions better than your website.

We have discussed ‘web preferences’ and customization in a previous video blog, it’s when your Google homepage recognizes patterns in your search history and provides you with a individual result tailored to suit your needs. Watch the previous video blog on Google Customization for more information.

Location based search, provides a user with a search that is related to where in the country you are. For example you may get a different result on Google.co.uk in London than in Edinburgh. You can set a default location within your Google account or let Google identify your IP address and locate you automatically. For Mobile devices we assume it uses GPS positioning to track and adapt your results.

We have found some useful links that we have added to the blog post, a site that compares Google Caffeine results to the live Google.co.uk and a couple of sites that query all 12 Google data centers allowing you to see your search engine positions across all possible servers.

Thanks for watching.

Comparecaffeine.com

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/multiple-datacenter-google-search/

http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/google-data-centers.php

SEroundtable have recently touched on the fact that the Google ‘did you mean’ feature was effecting some clients websites as the search engine was trying to be too clever. This not only moves the real results down but can lead search engine users astray.

I see this quite a lot when typing in customers key phrases, I have also seen it effect Creare.

When i first started to enhance our ‘search engine optimisation‘ listing i noticed that Google would try and point me too ‘search engine optimization‘ (notice the American ‘z’). The search has since evolved and now recalls the UK results for this phrase. I would suggest that Google will try and iron out any of the errors with such problems, but its search results can still be frustrating especially when liaising with clients.

We currently have an optimisation campaign with a client dore.co.uk. They wanted to appear for ‘ADD’ a huge phrase meaning (Attention Deficit Disorder). We have managed to successfully gain them a page 1 position in Google.co.uk, But their listing is less impressive due to Google added a ‘see results for’ section in the middle of the page.

This has resulted in our clients web site being 10th rather than the actual placement of 6th. see image below:

As you can see from the search results, our client has been pushed down by a recommendation from Google that personally i think to be irrelevant.

References -

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019340.html