Factors affecting Google Search position

I thought it was strange when I noticed that the search result position of a customer’s site, Eureka Financial, varies depending on whether the customer was logged in or not to their Google account.  It should be noted the customer is running Adwords campaigns for their site.

But it gets even stranger – can you believe that what browser you’re using affects the result position?

Here are the variations I’ve seen so far on searches for the phrase “financial training uk”:

  • customer logged in, result position #2
  • customer not logged in, result position #40
  • me logged in (different Google acct), Safari: #37
  • me logged in (different Google acct), Firefox: #40

When you’re using a Safari browser, Google adds a client param to the url, ie, client=safari, however for firefox the param is not added.

Go figure.