Google SERPs - how to explain this?

anodyne

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I think I'm losing my mind here, but have double and triple checked this and am getting the same result. Somebody tell me what's happening here....

Two days ago I put up a site targeting a specific keyword. I had it indexed yesterday - so far, so good. I was remoting into one of my servers this AM, and decided to see if I was showing up for my term yet. Nothing on page one, but on the next page I see my site at position #14. Perfect. I logged off the server and decided I wanted to make a few notes, so I ran the exact same query from my home PC - and my site was not showing up. Confused, I logged into a different server and ran the same query. Nothing there, either. Went back to the original machine, and there I am at #14.

I am beyond baffled. The same query on 3 different boxes (in 3 different states) shows my site in one set of results, but not the others. And what makes this even more confusing is that sites 1-13 are identical, and everything after (up to 20) is as well. The only difference is the one instance where I'm showing up.

There's got to be an explanation for this, but I have no idea what it would be. Anyone experienced this before? What's the deal?
 
There are various google datacenters which may give different results depending on which one you get. This is probably why.
 
Also if you are logged into your G account, make sure to turn off web history... I think thats what the setting is called. This will prevent them from showing you customized results that are different from what everyone else will see, this is the common error in your situation.

What you can try doing is running CCleaner then trying to search for your site again. Even for a NOT competitive keyword I highly doubt you are ranked for it quite yet, indexed yes, but ranked, probably not. It doesn't USUALLY go this fast.

Hopefully that fixed it for you. :)
 
Thanks for the feedback so far. A few things to note... @richjerkoff - you might be onto something. I was thinking along the same lines you are, but my site is the only one that seems to change between the different results. I'd expect others would be different as well. I bookmarked an interesting article yesterday that included the following quote
"On most Google queries, you're actually in multiple control or experimental groups simultaneously," says search quality engineer Patrick Riley. Then he corrects himself. "Essentially," he says, "all the queries are involved in some test." In other words, just about every time you search on Google, you're a lab rat.
Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1 Maybe related? Who knows.

@Dangazzm - Good thought, but I am not logged into a Google account in any of these locations. Additionally, I have not added Google Analytics to this site, or added it to Google webmaster tools. So as far as I know, there is nothing tying me to this site in Google's eyes. Also, I am definitely ranked for this term on the one box I mentioned. It's certainly possible to get a site ranked in a couple of days. Now, if I could just figure out how to get the same result on each machine....
 
OK, here's another update - just checked again, and I am now seeing the same results across the board. So, I'm at the same spot in the results from each location now. All I can think is that richjerkoff was on target here, and I was possibly hitting results before the various datacenters had synched up. Interesting stuff....
 
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