[sally]

I have just been checking a site on the rank checker tool and am totally baffled.

I first did a google uk search for the keyword and the site is at No9 on page 1. I then ran rank checker and it had a totally different number.

I tried it with about 6 different keywords but every one came back with a different position than I can physically see on the pages.

Can anyone explain?

[RayB]

Different datacentres mosy likely Sal

[sally]

In English please Ray? So does that mean the site ranks in different places depending on where the user is searching from?

[Mike Seddon]

No.

Sally,

Google has a few data centres where it keeps it's information and they are not always up to date with each other.

You are probably picturing Google as one huge computer somewhere in the world. In fact it's many computers in different places all over the world.

These computers tend to sync up every so often to make sure they all have the same information but at any one given time they can be out of sync.

So your rank checker is probably checking one computer whilst your searching is looking at another computer.

Think of it as looking at two clocks - they never tell you exactly the same time but they are about right usually.

Over time they all even out.

Hope that helps

Mike

[sally]

Brilliant explanation thank you Mike. I admit I did think of google not as a single big computer but as drawing it's data from a single source.

See you do learn something new every day.

[Dotwhack]

I had always imagined google as a giant robot from out of space - held captive in a room in America somewhere.

[RayB]

Google has a whole big bunch od datacentres - here's a list to give you an idea

[sally]

Well they need to get their act together and share data more frequently