{"id":29,"date":"2015-04-13T12:08:13","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T16:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/collinsx2.com\/blog\/?p=29"},"modified":"2015-05-12T14:16:22","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T18:16:22","slug":"why-your-serp-doesnt-look-like-my-serp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collinsx2.com\/blog\/why-your-serp-doesnt-look-like-my-serp\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your SERP doesn\u2019t look like my SERP."},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t be fooled by search engine result pages (SERP\u2019s). You\u2019ve checked your rankings and you see your pages consistently ranking high, but you\u2019re not getting the traffic you expect. Or, maybe you have a client that insists their rankings are higher than what you are seeing. If these scenarios sound familiar, the two big factors to consider are device type, and personalization.<\/p>\n

Search engines are increasingly tailoring results for mobile users (see my previous post: Googles-mobile-friendly-search-update-coming-april-21st<\/a>). Mobile users are seen as \u201con-the-go\u201d and seeking quick, easy to find answers. As such, mobile SERP\u2019s will favor results that are mobile-friendly and don\u2019t require a lot of scrolling on the page to find the information that a user is seeking. Additionally, location plays a key role for any queries deemed to have a local intent – explicit or implicit.<\/p>\n

Personalization happens when search engines use factors such as your location and your search history to provide custom-tailored search results. Here is an example of where location settings can affect the results:<\/p>\n

In this example I used the query \u201cjaguars\u201d. On the left is the SERP for the location \u201cJacksonville, FL\u201d and on the right is the SERP for the location \u201cPalm Springs, CA\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s not surprising to see the Jacksonville Jaguars football team in the knowledge graph at the top right since Jacksonville is their home. As you can see, the SERP on the right returns results focused more on the animal, and not as much football related information:<\/p>\n

(click to enlarge)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
SERP for query “jaguars” with location set to “Jacksonville, FL”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"SERP-jaguars-palm<\/a>
SERP for query “jaguars” with location set to “Palm Springs, CA”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Search history comes into play through the use of cookies stored on your device, or if you are signed-in to Google (or Bing, etc.). The search engines will use your search history, and possibly your social connections (there is much debate about how much influence social media has on search rankings), to return content they think is more relevant to you based on what you’ve done in the past<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s becoming increasingly harder to completely eliminate these factors from your search results, but here are some things you can do (I\u2019m referring to Google for these options, but you could apply them to Bing, Yahoo, etc.).<\/p>\n