We all know Google loves experiments in the search results, and some are more noticeable than others, and I tend to notice a ton of them. Different colored stars are pretty noticeable, while I am sure there are many other subtle experiments we never notice, especially if they influence ranking in some way.
John Mueller dropped an interesting tidbit on experiments and that the average searcher is seeing up to 10 experiments at a time – and they can be completely different from the experiments someone else in the same room sees.
The other thing to keep in mind is that we permanently do experiments. So every time you’re searching, you’re probably in ten, twenty, thirty different experiments at the same time. And everyone is, so it’s kind of normal that someone sitting next to you might see different results than you would see.
When I thought about Google running experiments, I knew there were some that you really can’t notice. But I was pretty surprised to see that you might be seeing 30 different experiments at a time. I suspect that might make people look a tiny bit closer at their search results.
It also explains why Dr. Pete Meyers from Mozcast often sees experiments when he runs his keyword searches for the daily Mozcast. While it isn’t likely he is seeing a different set of up to 30 experiments on every search he does for Mozcast, it does explain why he does manage to capture so many of them.
Jennifer Slegg
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