Logging out of Google vs. &PWS=0 ?
-
I typically append &pws=0 to my Google queries when I'm gathering results to share with a client.
I recently sat in on another digital marketing firms presentation to the client, and they made a big deal about how their search engineers had conducted all the searched by "painstaking logging out of google, using a fresh browser, etc..." In my mind I was thinking that it was either a search engineer wasting time, or some hyperbole to impress the client.
But I didn't really know for sure. Is &pws=0 actually equivellent to using a completely annonymous browser. For fun, I ran some queries under incognito on chrome running off a thumbdrive, and compared them to &PWS=0 results from my everday browswer while logged into google.
I couldn't see any difference, but in my quick informal test, I also didn't find any difference between a personal SERP and a &PWS=0 SERP, so maybe I just didn't try the right query.
Any thoughts?
-
Yep, I agree with you there - never have trusted using &pws=0 logged in or out
-
To be honest adding &pws=0 is not as strong as it once was a few years ago, in todays market if you want one of the best ways to view non personalized results you need to use the Google Ad Preview Tool -
https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000
Their is no way logging out will totally wipe all the data.
-
Pretty sure that &pws=0 doesn't work for google instant, but does when instant is disabled. So logged out/clearing cookies etc seems like the most accurate when Instant is on.
I usually to run a seperate firefox browser (everything else in Chrome/Safari) with 'never remember history' assigned, instant assigned off, not logged in and running a cool little plug-in that automatically adds the &pws=0 to google searches (find it here fire IE and FF). I find this to be pretty suitable for 'un-personalised' results and not much hassle.
Cyrus wrote an article about this a little while ago that you might find useful. But i agree, the logging out every time and clearing all your history seems like overkill.
-
I've no direct research either way, but when I met Eric Enge (of Stone Temple Consulting) he told me to be logged in and use &pws=0. I'd very much trust his opinion
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Need advice w/ keywords & content to get started with SEO on my own website
I am a real estate agent, marketing properties to Germans moving to / buying an overseas home in my country. I inquired with a few different SEO agencies and I cannot afford their services, $3000+ a month and my market is not huge as you will see in the search data below. So I will have to go ahead and do SEO on my own and will obviously need some help. The space is not competitive which is awesome. That's how the volume and competition look for the most popular (& broadest) search term is "immobilien countryname" (property countryname), according to Ubersuggest - attachment 1 (translation for reference): property countryname 1300 property in countryname 480 buy property countryname 260 property countryname seaview 170 buy property countryname 110 Here is an example of the top 10 searches for houses by volume. (Attachment 2 is a screenshot of the competition) 1. haus in countryname kaufen 720 $0.14
Keyword Research | | dnlpwrsellr
(house in countryname buy)
2. countryname haus kaufen 590 $0.36
(countryname house buy)
3. einfamilienhaus countryname haus kaufen 210 $0.45
(single family countryname house buy)
4. häuser in countryname kaufen 170 $0.29
(houses in countryname buy)
5. haus countryname kaufen 170 $0.46
(house countryname buy)
6. günstige häuser in countryname 110 $0.10
(cheap houses in countryname)
7. häuser kaufen in countryname location1 110 $0.22
(houses buy in countryname location1)
8. haus kaufen countryname meerblick 90 $0.20
(house buy countryname sea-view)
9. haus in countryname location2 kaufen 70 $0.03
(house in countryname location2 buy)
10. countryname haus am meer kaufen 70 $0.05
(countryname house near the sea buy) the first 5 results are taken by big portals, just the top one has done any optimization at all as you can see the competition is pretty lame, just some of them are doing any SEO, pretty badly (including spammy links), still rank. The way it seems, there are 4 main categories to optimize for: Properties Houses Apartments 'Move to countryname' information Should I optimize my homepage for a 'property' term, 3 other pages for 'house', 'apartment, and 'info' terms? How do I pick keywords to optimize for, esp. considering that they are basically the same e.g.: house in countryname buy countryname house buy house countryname buy or property countryname countryname property property in countryname ...and should I pick just one? What sort of content could I include in a "buy a house in countryname" type of page and how do I write around such keywords? I am having an issue finding examples to follow as there is no competition to emulate and the other markets/countries are dominated by large portals which also seemingly get ranked based on size / authority. Beyond that there is virtually no interest in the country = no traffic, besides general bs such as the language, the weather and such where there are a bunch of huge websites on the first page - so I am not sure what content could I use to drive traffic. I will come up with something, but there are no obvious ones.. My domain name is 1 year old, I have no links yet. Moz reports Page Authority 5, Domain Authority 2 for my domain. I reckon that's enough for starters... Any input and ideas are more than welcome! Thank you. Qy2gat6.png tG93AJt.png0 -
How accurate is Googles Keyword Planner?
I did some keyword research for our company. Some of the terms we got 100,000 search volume for in 2011 now have only 90 monthly searches. I am doing exact match for both US and Global and neither are any where near those high of numbers. Now I can't say how the old report on this was done but we are all a little skeptical of these numbers. Is there any other tool out there for search volume on Google? The Moz tool while it lists Google as an option only does Bing. Thank you!
Keyword Research | | Sika220 -
What's the difference between broad and exact match in Google's keyword research tool?
The exact match option shows you much smaller numbers. And Google's explanation of each isn't comprehensive. Can someone explain the difference between the two with examples? Also, which one is it better to target while doing SEO research?
Keyword Research | | davhad0 -
How long is the google sandbox these days?
Hello, We have a site that is in the google sandbox www.thewealthymind(dot)com How long is the sandbox these days?
Keyword Research | | BobGW0 -
Google keyword rankings
I show a MON icon (it looks like a calendar page) for all my google rankings. The icon is not clickable. Can anybody tell me what this is? Also, I use to be highly ranked in 100's of keywords in google now barely anything. The domain is several years old and has performed in well in the past. Can't figure out what is going on.
Keyword Research | | ecoscott0 -
Image Description & Image Title
Our site allows us to update via WYSIWYG editor. When adding photos to our pages it gives us the option to add (Image Description) & (Image Title). When optimizing a single page how should we properly be filling these in? Should Image title be keyword we are trying to rank for? If so, should we be following proper keyword density ratio to avoid keyword stuffing? Thank you
Keyword Research | | TP_Marketing0 -
Google update going to cause problems for me and maybe you!
Hi, I got a warning come up today in my Adwords account about exact and phrase match being updated to include misspellings etc Read more here: https://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=2537522 Now I use the Google keyword tool to research into exact match terms for SEO, gives me an idea of the search volumes I could potentially receive. If Google adds misspellings, singular and plural forms, acronyms, stemmings etc this will change the data in the Keyword tool not giving accurate figures on the EXACT term. Any thoughts?
Keyword Research | | activitysuper0 -
Is there a better keyword tool than google's adwords keyword tool?
I have heard a lot of people say not to trust the results of google adword's keyword tool. Is there a better tool out there that i am not aware of that can judge local monthly and global monthly search volume?
Keyword Research | | adriandg1
