Hi June There are two different types of Google search. My understanding is that the personalised search is the default. It uses cookies to remember your favourite websites and preferences. I think you have to have a Google account for the feature to work. I believe that websites that are "plus oned" on Google+ by your friends get bumped up higher too. When you go to Google search there are some buttons next to the gear lever icon. If you click on the globe symbol you can hide your private personalised results. If you click on the person symbol you can return to your personalised results. You'll see that for many search terms if you toggle backwards and forwards between the two settings you get very different results. I searched for Sillifant without any additional words. I can see that with a surname like Willing you would need to add "family history" to your search terms in order to get any meaningful results! The search results that are returned seem to change on a daily if not hourly basis. If you start a new website it does seem to take a while for Google to pick it up. In the long run dedicated one-name study websites, like Marie's Pepler website, will tend to rank higher in search engine results than Guild profile pages but if you add a page to an existing well established website (eg the Guild or Family Tree DNA) then I think your page automatically gets indexed from the beginning. Best wishes Debbie

Hi Debbie That could explain things. I do have a Google account, though I seldom log in these days. You are correct, I searched under Sillifant family history, rather than just Sillifant, to get the Sillifant Guild profile as result no 6. This morning I popped into my local library to use one of their computers where, as far as I know, Google cannot possibly know who I am, and a search on Sillifant gave me the Guild profile at no 3, which is the same as I get at home. A search on Sillifant family history in the library gave me the Guild profile as result no 7, rather than no 6 which I get at home. I also searched under Willing family history in the library and was very pleased to see my Guild profile right at the top. I get the same at home, but I was concerned that this was because Google knew my interests. It looks like it does not make a significant difference in this type of search. My DNA project appears as result no 4 in the library and at home, below Ancestry and the House of Names. I then logged on to Google but could not see any difference when hiding or showing private results for these searches, though it did make a difference for other searches. My conclusion is that it may not be correct to say that a certain site is in a certain position in the Google results, as it depends who is searching, but for some searches it may well make little or no difference. So long as you make the front page of results you are probably OK. I think I have had a few more contacts recently than normal, though I do not usually ask how people find me. But this might be nothing more than coincidence, as the numbers are still quite low. June Willing Guild of One-Name Studies member no 2117 Willing/Willings One-Name Study http://one-name.org/name_profile/Willing/ Willing/Willings DNA Project http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Willing/ Dominicus One-Name Study http://one-name.org/name_profile/dominicus-2/ On 27 Nov 2014, at 23:48, Debbie Kennett wrote: > Hi June > > There are two different types of Google search. My understanding is > that the > personalised search is the default. It uses cookies to remember your > favourite websites and preferences. I think you have to have a Google > account for the feature to work. I believe that websites that are > "plus > oned" on Google+ by your friends get bumped up higher too. When you > go to > Google search there are some buttons next to the gear lever icon. If > you > click on the globe symbol you can hide your private personalised > results. If > you click on the person symbol you can return to your personalised > results. > You'll see that for many search terms if you toggle backwards and > forwards > between the two settings you get very different results. > > I searched for Sillifant without any additional words. I can see > that with a > surname like Willing you would need to add "family history" to your > search > terms in order to get any meaningful results! The search results > that are > returned seem to change on a daily if not hourly basis. > > If you start a new website it does seem to take a while for Google > to pick > it up. In the long run dedicated one-name study websites, like Marie's > Pepler website, will tend to rank higher in search engine results > than Guild > profile pages but if you add a page to an existing well established > website > (eg the Guild or Family Tree DNA) then I think your page > automatically gets > indexed from the beginning. > > Best wishes > > Debbie Hi Debbie It is my understanding that the order of Google results depends on who is doing the searching. I think that Google orders your results based on what it knows about you, in the same way that you get personalised advertising on many websites, but I stand to be corrected on that. I have just done a Google search for Sillifant family history and the Sillifant Guild profile is result no 6. Of course, I do not know if you used the same search terms. >