You may get the same or similar results to someone else who searches on Google Search. But sometimes, Google may give you different results based on things like time, context, or personalized results.
Time causes differences in results
Time may be one of the biggest reasons why results vary between people. For example, we regularly add new content from the web soon after it’s published. Those who search a few hours or even a few minutes apart may find variations because of newly available content.
There are data centers around the world that Search uses . When we make an improvement to our ranking systems , it takes time for these to fully roll out to all our data centers. This can produce differences in results depending on which data center is responding to your search.
Search uses context to improve results
When Search considers the context of your search , it gives more relevant results. Some examples of context are:
- Location:If you search pizza in a particular city, you get results relevant to that location .
- Language:Helps you get results in the language you speak .
- Device type:Links to the correct app store or shows the best results based on your screen type, like mobile or desktop.
- Related results:After you click a web result and return back to the search results, you can find more related results .
- Recent searches: Helps understand the context of what you’re looking for right now
Personalization & Google Search results
With personalization, you get Google Search results tailored for you based on info in your Google Account, like your Search Services History. Personalization is only used if it can provide information that’s likely to be more helpful to you. This page explains how Google shows personalized recommendations on your Search results page and how to control them.
Learn about personalized recommendations for signed-in users
If you have Personalized Recommendations turned on, your Search experience will be personalized, based on things like your search history.
Personalization doesn’t affect all search results. Instead, some results might be personalized while others aren’t.
Sometimes, personalization may affect the order that individual results would be ranked on the search results page.
Other times, personalization might affect the order in which certain content blocks appear. In other words, a set of video results might appear above a set of web links, if your search history indicates that you prefer video content over web content.
If you have Personalized Recommendations enabled, you may find a note in the footer of the search results page.
- Results are personalized.
If Personalized Recommendations are turned off, or you’ve entered a query that we don’t provide personalized results for, you may find a note in the footer that reflects that.
- Results are not personalized.
You can see a non-personalized version of the results for your query when you click on the link in the footer ("Try without").
In some instances, the non-personalized search results for your query may look the same as the personalized results. This means that for this query, the effect of personalization was too small to move the results much or at all. The results you see are only reranked if doing so will provide information that’s likely to be more helpful to you.
Tip:Clicking on "Try without" will not affect your settings.
Learn how to modify your personalization settings for your account .
Lastly, even if you have Personalized Recommendations disabled, Search still uses the context of your query to improve results . Some examples of context include the area you’re searching from, language, and device type. This means, for example, if you search [pizza near me] in a particular city, you could get results relevant to that location . The location used for your search is displayed in the footer, along with a link to update it if you choose.
Turn off Personalized Recommendations
If you turn off Personalized Recommendations, Search will no longer show you individual results specific to you or any features that depend on personalization. In addition, this setting change:
- Doesn't disable your ability to find past searches in Autocomplete.
- Doesn’t pause or delete stored activity within your Google Account. You can always pause or delete stored activity through data and privacy controls .
- Doesn’t disable or delete app or website preferences. For example, language settings or search settings, like number of results per page, are preferences and aren’t affected.
- Doesn’t disable or delete material you save. For example, saved items in your Collection, stocks you follow, or your home and work address aren’t affected.
To disable personalized recommendations when you are signed out, toggle off Search customization settings.
