Google Question

[hummingwolf]

Does anybody out there know why dcjensen and I would be getting wildly different results from the same search on Google? Neither of us is using safe search and we're both using the US version of Google, so it isn't something that obvious. The reason I ask is that he did a search for "hummingwolf" and got "Results 1-50 of about 35,700 for hummingwolf," while my results for the same search are more like 550. We also got different results for the phrase "hellmouth cafe," though those numbers were much closer.

Differences between us: he's on broadband, I'm on dial-up (with AOL, even, though I do not use the AOL window); he's signed in to his Google account, I'm just anonymous. Would either of those things make a difference in our search results?

Edit: Using anonymizer, I was getting slightly higher results at first, till I chose to "repeat the search with the omitted results included," then jumped to page 28 of those results. On the regular Google page, non-anonymized, it tells me "Results 271 - 280 of about 440 for hummingwolf." On the anonymizer version, it says "Results 271 - 280 of about 35,600 for hummingwolf." What's going on here?

Jumping to results page 44 then gives me only very slightly different results: a final 438 versus 439.

Edit again: Dan gets the same results I do on www.google.cn (557). But on www.google.ch our results diverge again--559 for me and 35,700 for him.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm on dial-up, and I got 37,500 results for hummingwolf.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Weird. I'm still getting results in the 550 range.

[bunney.livejournal.com]

I'm on dial-up, Googled anonymously and got the same results Dan did.

Ahhhh...the Hellmouth Cafe. The memories *sigh*

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

This is strange. Zoopie's getting the same results I did, so it's not just me!

I miss being awake enough to follow all the conversations in the old chats. Those were fun.

a theory

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

broadband. 37,500
forgive me but if it were me it
would probably be a typo in spelling
knocking down the number?

Re: a theory

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Nope, we're chatting on AIM and I've copied & pasted what he's done. We are doing exactly the same search.

[zoopownsyou.livejournal.com]

I get 557

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the number I'm getting now (was getting 510 earlier). Except when I surf through http://www.anonymizer.com I get 569.

[zoopownsyou.livejournal.com]

weird

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not just me getting these results.

::clings to da Zoopie::

[zoopownsyou.livejournal.com]

we suck at teh internet

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

But we're still cute, right?

[danalog.livejournal.com]

Does one of you have a GMAIL account that they're logged into and the other not?

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

dcjensen was signed in to a gmail account at first, though he got the same results when signed out. Out of curiosity, he also tried using both a Mac & PC--same results on both machines.

So far zoopownsyou gets the same low number I do, while other people are getting the much higher results DC got.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was signed onto my gmail account.

[coffeegrace.livejournal.com]

Curiouser and curiouser! I did a google search for hummingwolf and got about 35,700 results. I have no idea why you're getting different results, just thought I'd add to the mystery.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

It's very weird. Why is Google discriminating against me? Waah!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You could try asking at Ask metafilter, a site for asking and answering questions not easily answered by google.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I think I might just do that. Thanks.