Over the past few months I have started to notice a trend with Google. They seem to be testing out strange results at select IP addresses on specific terms. I call this the “Google Scramble”. The strange thing is that many of the results are just completely irrelevant. I believe Google periodically performs limited testing on high traffic terms that seems to be about tracking the users clicks to see if they are satisfied with the new results compared to the old results.

Luckily, once Google is done with there testing the final result is of the high quality that we expect from Google. Since most people do not leave the first page, Google may be testing deeper listings that seem to have picked up an abnormal amount of clicks for their placement by moving them to the first page. By putting them on the first page of the results Google can then see how the users interact with them. If the result is clicked on and the user does not return to Google for some time Google may give this URL a boost in it’s “normal” index. But without this testing Google would never have enough click through data on these results to make sound adjustments.

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